Being close to home for a while makes the feet itch. That may sound like a strange statement, but it is straight talking about what drives me. I like to be “out there”, smelling the fresh, dusty air and reviving the senses with a fresh winters chill on the cheeks as the Land Rover bumps along a single track through the bush. To be honest, that is exactly what drives me, and as tired as I can be at the end of a hard day photographing- up at 4h30, back in camp to talk photography and discuss post processing and then heading out back at 15h30 and dinner till the camp is dead quiet and every one is sleeping- I wake up ready to do it all again with a very certain verve the next morning. It’s as simple as that.
So when I have an extended session back in town- the feet start to itch. For some that may mean mischief, but for me that means I need to get the cameras out again.
Luckily, close to where I live there are some very nice places to photograph. One of those places is the Austin Roberts bird park.
Firstly, Austin Robert’s the person. South Africa’s Audubon, Austin Roberts was a director of the Transvaal Museum of natural history. A great affinity for birds, Roberts’ spent most of his adult life collecting and identifying birds for identification and taxonomic purposes. The result- the definitive bird identification reference guide on the birds of southern Africa. Roberts’ bird book is now in its 8th edition and many avid birders will fondly tell you of their first tattered and abused “Roberts”.
So the park is named after Austin Roberts and of course there are birds there to photograph. White-faced ducks, in their musical collectiveness make up the numbers amongst a few other species. So having itchy feet, I spent a few mornings here working on technique and specific settings. The first instinct with bird photography is to get the bird as pin sharp as you can. This involves setting a high shutter speed to freeze every detail. The result is something as in image 1 of the essay.
However, once a certain type of standard image is captured, I always look for something new and different. And so it was that I went to Austin Roberts each morning with a different mission.
To capture motion.
This proved harder to do than perceived and in doing so I noticed just how much these birds move their heads when they fly. It made me study their heads as they fly and in doing so, I noticed that they keep their head very still as they are landing. So I set up to catch them when doing so.
Eventually I managed to capture an image that portrays the effect I had in mind. (See image 2) A motion of wings and feathers that shows more ephemeral movement than any detail could ever do. And that is just what photography is to me. Fleeting, beautiful and descriptive all at once.
Right near home I managed to rid the itchy feet by watching and observing birds and then photographing them- I’m sure Austin Roberts would have been proud…!
For more info on going on a Photo workshop to improve your photography, visit C4 Images & Safaris.
Exposure information
Image 1
Nikon D300 - 200-400mm lens
Exposure – f 5.6 Shutter Speed: 1/1600sec
Exp. Comp. - 0.3 EV
ISO - 640
Flash sync– not attached, Exposure mode– Aperture priority, Metering Mode– centre weighted File type– NEF (RAW)
Focal length: 460mm (690mm 35mm Equivalent)
Tripod
Image 2
Nikon D300 - 200-400mm lens
Exposure – f 25 Shutter Speed: 1/60
Exp. Comp. - 0.3 EV
ISO - 400
Flash sync– Fired- rear curtain sync, Exposure mode– Shutter priority, Metering Mode– Matrix. File type– NEF (RAW)
Focal length: 380mm (570mm 35mm Equivalent)
Tripod
This article first appeared on shemimages.com
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