This image was a lucky accident. I was standing next to my car along a tour route at one the wildlife refuges in the Central Valley, looking at a large flock of sandhill cranes and Ross’s geese, when I saw this egret flying by. I quickly turned, pressed the autofocus button on the back of the camera, followed the bird, and held the shutter button down as the egret landed.
The photograph languished in my archives for awhile before I processed it. Maybe I didn’t realize its potential right away because it was such a grab shot. But I did finally process it recently, and found several things to like about it.
First, there’s the contrast. Most of the frame is dark, but the two key elements – the bird and the road – are lighter, so they stand out. Any time you can place a light subject against a dark background, and have that subject stand out cleanly and distinctly against its surroundings, you have the potential for a strong image. There’s no sunlight in this photo, so the contrast isn’t created by sun and shade, but by the juxtaposition of a white bird against dark vegetation. But it doesn’t matter how the contrast is created, as long as it’s there. (The same idea also works for dark subjects against light backgrounds. I talk more about both kinds of contrast in this post.)
Sunbeams and fog in a Sacramento Valley orchard, California
The last few winters I’ve spent some time in California’s San Joaquin Valley photographing migrating birds – mostly snow geese, Ross’s geese, and sandhill cranes. Last week Claudia and I ventured further north, into the Sacramento Valley (the northern half of California’s Great Central Valley), exploring some of the backroads and wildlife refuges there.
One morning, while driving an obscure little road in the Sacramento Valley, Claudia and I stumbled upon an orchard filled with fog. As far as we could tell there was no other fog within 50 miles, because there’s very little moisture anywhere, but for some reason this one spot had fog – possibly because the trees had been watered recently, creating moisture that condensed in the cool morning air.
Seeing the sunbeams cutting through the mist underneath the trees, I grabbed my camera and tripod, and quickly framed a few compositions, one of which is shown above. Within five minutes the fog had burned off, leaving us with yet another clear, warm, dry January day.
Formation of Ross’s geese taking flight, San Joaquin Valley, CA, USA; 1/250th sec. at f/16, ISO 800
On Wednesday Claudia and I rose early and drove down to the San Joaquin Valley. We spent most of the day photographing birds with our friends G Dan Mitchell, Patty Mitchell, David Hoffman, and Charlotte Hoffman, and had a wonderful time. The human company was great, and we found lots of my favorite bird subjects – the white Ross’s and snow geese.
While composition and light are always vital, some aspects of wildlife photography are very different from landscape photography. With wildlife the subjects are moving, placing greater importance on anticipation, timing, and the ability to make quick decisions about framing and camera settings.
On Wednesday Claudia and I returned to the San Joaquin Valley with our friend Kirk. We had another great day, capped by watching more than 10,000 Ross’ geese land in a pond right in front of us, silhouetted against the dusk sky. Claudia and I came back the next morning and watched them all fly out, the white birds reflected in the still water.
Video is a great medium for showing the incredible sights and sounds of these birds, and Claudia did an amazing job of capturing these events with our little Flip Mino video camera. At the end of each video you’ll also see some stills that I made.
I’ve been using Lightroom since Adobe released the beta version in 2006. Over the years I’ve learned many shortcuts, and in this video I share some of my favorite tips – things I use all the time to streamline my workflow:
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