The Rest of the Series

Here's a few more of the Blue Jay.

Finally!

I've lived in our current place for five years, and have been trying to get a photo of the Blue Jays that live around here for about that long. Three cameras and a lot of wasted poorly exposed pictures later, I finally got one. Walking back from the skytrain the other day, I was lucky enough to have my camera with me, I found this Jay poking around the leaves in behind our building.

The light wasn't great, a little post processing was needed to bring out the colours, but overall, it's the closest I've been. The most unfortunate aspect of getting this picture, is it has reminded me that I really want a 400mm lens.


f5.6
1/800
300mm

Growing

The next step, I think, is to try and photograph more than just a flower. As Scott Bourne (and surely many other photographers) repeats endlessly, photos should tell a story. There are lots of things out there, but most of them aren't that interesting. It's also clear to me that everyone sees things a little differently. So I think the challenge is to articulate how I see things through my photos.

There's a sadness or heaviness to this picture, but I think it would have been better if I'd changed the angle, or removed the flowers in the background. They're out of focus, which is what I wanted, but even so, the colour is distracting. The subject of this photo would have more impact if the background were more uniform.

f/4.8
1/125
195mm

Out Came the Spider

I was exploring a garden, looking for interesting angles to play with a 70-300mm macro lens when I stumbled onto this flower.

Shooting macro with a 70-300mm lens is interesting. Because of the focal length, I'm often further away from larger objects, like flowers, than you might think. Details, like this spider, on a flower, are much harder to spot from the distance required to focus in the 200-300mm range.

So finding this spider was somewhat lucky. Of course, now it's made my garden prowling somewhat exhausting as I look for more little critters. Still, I'm pleased with the results.


f/4.8
1/320
195mm