Animals and Art — Jon's Photoblog

Now there’s a pretentious title. Well, half pretentious. There are animals in this blog post, but we’ll have to see about the art. It’s a bit of a long one this time, so feel free to skip the narrative, although there might be an amusing animal tale or two.

Speaking of animals, let’s get to it. We had a fairly cool late April and early May, for which I’ve been eternally grateful and everyone else seems to be cursing. So the ice stayed on the lakes and streams longer than most years. I’m a slow learner, but I seem to have picked up that when you’re approaching a screen of reeds and grass, take your time and there’s probably something on the other side. These geese made an early claim to their spot, and I seem to have caught them napping.

I was crowing about my 300mm lens in my last blog, so I’ll just get it out of the way once more: I’m just thrilled at the reach of this thing. I don't have to get as close to the animals, so I bother them less, and still get much better shots than before. Anyway, goose on the right appears to have been sleeping, and goose on the left seems kind of nonchalant. They let me take a bit of a zig-zag approach and get closer:

After a while it was clear I was irritating them, so I moved on. Further down the trail I was treated to a gathering of various waterfowl, including a pair of trumpeter swans. The swans just glowed, even in the pale cloudy light of the day. Unfortunately they noticed me and retreated slightly, and I couldn’t get any closer than 50 metres or so. Still, it was worth a shot, and it was interesting to see such a variety of birds in such a small space: a merganser, mallards, a wood duck, and geese which look tiny compared to the swans. The buffleheads were too shy even for my distant presence.

Later that day I wandered up to the beach. I managed to get numerous shots of gulls…not exactly fascinating pictures, but it was good practice. I did manage to catch this drama of an elder gull putting a youngster in his place:

That was MY sandy crumb, and Don’t. You. Forget it!

One of the things I’m really stoked about with regards to this Olympus system is the ability to move the focus point around and actually compose a shot. So even though this crow was busy and buffeted by strong winds (bending its neck feathers), I was still able to move the focus point to the lower portion of the frame in order to include that vast empty expanse behind. The intent was to show the fortitude of these creatures in such an apparently barren place:

A couple weeks later, in different terrain: Birds Hill Park has a lot of different micro environments. There is one fairly open field I hiked to and decided to sit against a hill under some tangled branches to see what might happen along. I’m normally not very patient with that kind of thing, but I guess I’d hiked long enough to settle in for a rest, and it turned out to be quite rewarding. First, a Palm Warbler popped by to hunt for insects in the dead foliage from the previous fall. The visit was short-lived, and this is the best I managed:

It left, I looked down to adjust my camera and sat scanning the sky for the next 15 minutes before I noticed a new blob in a distant tree. It must have arrived when I briefly looked at my camera…such is the way. It turned out to be a kestrel (a small falcon), preening. I didn’t dare break cover, so I had to make the best of the distance. It looks like it’s about to take off, but it was just stretching every flight muscle and rearranging its feathers:

While I took picture after picture of this little bird, I had no idea three deer were making their way across the field towards me. We only noticed each other when I finally pulled my eye from the camera and cleared my throat, and they took off bounding away from me. But I sat quietly, and because the sun was at my back they had trouble spotting me, while I could watch them as they used practically every bit of terrain to sneak back in my direction. Spot the eye?

I think the camera lens obscured my face enough they weren’t sure what I was, and they kept edging closer:

It stinks like human, but what kind of face is that?

One of them was clearly the herd leader, and it started doing something I’ve never seen before: it would edge closer, then lift its front leg, pause dramatically, then stomp and snort.

It did this several times while I kept snapping away:

I had no idea deer were so investigative and maybe even “aggressive”. Finally I wondered what would happen if I snorted back. So I did, and the result was instantaneous: three white-tailed asses fleeing back across the field. I guess now I know better, I should have just kept my mouth shut and waited to see how close they would get. In any case, I figured that was enough disruption for one night, and I left them to their field shortly after.

That pretty much covers the animals. Now on to the “art”. I’m finding I’m in a bit of a rut when it comes to landscapes. I feel like my shots are better than they were a year or two ago, but at the same time it’s because I’ve internalized some lessons and sometimes getting the shot has become a formulaic process. I’m looking for a foreground element, some kind of leading line, and slapping the horizon either roughly on the 1/3rd line, or the 2/3rd line.

Here’s an example of a formulaic shot:

I mean, I like it, but it’s like the beach gave me a gift: two converging “leading lines” made from the driftwood, pulling the eye across the nifty gritty textures of the beach and straight out to the ice and sky.

But thinking like this recently got me into trouble.

Behind the dunes of Grand Beach the snow piles up all winter long, swept off the beach along with a sprinkling of sand, by the westerly winds. It is always the last to melt in spring. I really loved the curving shapes of the snow leading into the distance. I knew in my heart the snow was the subject, but my head said “horizon on the third”, so this is the initial shot:

This feels very bottom-heavy. Thankfully once I got home I realized my mistake: the horizon is incidental, the least important part of the composition. What the shot is about is the snow as it leads off towards the trees and beyond. And thankfully again, there was enough room in the shot to correct this mistake.

I had intended it to be a B&W shot, so I applied that treatment, but in this second version the sky is considerably reduced and the whole shot tightened up. Here is the final image:

(I’ve also given this a slight sepia tone, which is a new technique I’m trying out.)

Of course, I could be completely wrong and the first image is preferable, but not to me :)

Anyway, I’m trying to absorb these lessons so I can think of them in the field rather than when I get home.

On to other subjects. Nights were still freezing when I captured these “frost wings” in ice puddles (on the way to the geese above). This is one instance where I had thought I would be converting to B&W, but find I prefer the colour versions:

The struggle here is to find the “balance”. There ain’t no “rule of thirds” going on, no leading lines or horizons.

In a large puddle further down the trail I came across a weird sight, a circle of bubbles frozen in the ice. I have a hard time imagining the conditions that would let this happen. There would have had to have been an ice skin before the bubbles came up from below, only to be frozen themselves. This one I was sure would work, in B&W, and it turned out I agreed with myself later :)

Compositionally this breaks a lot of rules, mostly that the subject is smack in the middle of the frame. But I think in this case it works.

Back up at the beach, while watching the gulls squabble, I was entranced by the sky. This one is also a bit formulaic (even though I selected it for the title shot), but I think this time it works:

For me the eye plays hopscotch from the first boulder, over to the one with the gull, then up and across to the left before rising to the sky…at least that’s the intent.

My last shot at the beach is really just an artifact of the 300mm lens. The sun on the distant ice makes heat waves and enough mist to optically warp everything, and the lens enhances this. The dark patches are the ice rotting in the shallows. In the end, it’s not really a shot of anything, but I just like the patterns:

Let’s end this “art” section with another artistic failure/learning experience. I found a twisty oak tree just last week. As usual, the problem in the scrub of Manitoba is separating your subject from the surroundings, and this oak was of course nestled among other shrubbery. This called for a wide aperture and low depth of field, and so:

Now, honestly, I like almost everything about this shot, because of the shape of the tree, how it’s framed, and where it cuts off… except the branches invading the top. I included them intentionally because in the field I thought it added balance. But getting it home it just looks wrong to me, the branches not only make it top-heavy, but distract from the simplicity of the gnarly tree. They are also out of focus, but I think if they were in focus it would be even worse.

I could have taken the same shot by getting closer and under the top branches, at least, that is the lesson I’m taking from this.

I tried to save it by cropping it completely differently, eg:

But this doesn’t include enough of the tree to appreciate its growth and texture. The second lesson is sometimes you can’t save these mistakes.

And so, another month goes by. Things are opening back up from the Covid-19 shutdown. We’re lucky to be in one of the least impacted areas of the country, but hopefully relaxing the restrictions won’t lead to a resurgence. I hope everyone stays happy and healthy.

Cheers!

May 16 Animals and Art

Jun 4 Two Days in May

Apr 13 Transition

Related Posts