Bird Photography? Yes, I Can. So Can You.

Northern Mockingbird stands at attention. See link for photos at end of this post.

I’m not an idiot.

In fact, I pride myself on being able to figure things out when I put my mind to it. I get that from my mom. She tinkers and dings and wrestles and pulls, then all of a sudden, your zipper is fixed, your model is built, your chair is reupholstered, your wallpaper is hung, and so on. But whereas her talents lie in the whole of her hands — she’s a knitter, a painter, a seamstress, a decorator — mine lies only in my fingers as they shunt signals from my brain and heart onto a keyboard.

So it’s very disturbing for me when I FEEL like an idiot–when I try very hard and not succeed. Yet that is how my foray into digital photography made me feel in the months leading up to my digital photo safari at the Rio Grande Valley Birding Festival.

In order to make use of a fantastic piece of digital SLR machinery, even at a rudimentary level, you need to know your way around the Aperture (A), Shutter (S), and ISO buttons at a minimum. Why buy a dSLR if you keep it on Auto?  

See link for best photos at end of this post.

After buying my camera, I made sincere attempts to absorb the complex rules of A and S and their effects on depth of field, as well as ISO settings. I read tutorials, read photography books, practiced in the field, talked to other photographers, and watched my JumpStart DVD guide to Nikon over and over again to learn how to adjust settings.

But it didn’t stick. Maybe my brain hit a wall when met with the confounding truth that a large Aperture number (e.g., F/16) corresponds to a TINY hole and that a SMALL A equals a BIG hole. And wait, is turning the knob to the RIGHT stopping UP–or is that stopping DOWN? And how can proper exposure be attained equally well with a SLOW shutter speed and TINY aperture as with a FAST shutter and LARGE aperture? What do you do with a backlit bird again? The bird’s in flight, do I change this from A to S? CONFUSION. All I know is that the information rolled off me like water off a duck’s back–perhaps because I had no hanger to hang it on.

Green Jay. See link for other photos at end of this post.

Photography is an art, a skill, a lifetime pursuit. I respect and envy my friends in the biz (see my favorite photographer here). But to get a photo good enough to send home to Ma or to post to Facebook should not be rocket science.  

All summer long, I’d find myself in the field with crippling looks at a gorgeous bird, feathers splayed in all its glory, waiting for me to steal its soul. I’d snap a photo, an awful one, and in my haste default to Auto. Or worse, I’d play the Russian roulette of digital shooting. That is, employ a random series of camera adjustments and hope for the best.

The possibility of failure was staring at me in the face, snickering from the sidelines. It left that sinking feeling in my gut: am I really THAT BAD? Is it really THIS HARD? Did I just blow two grand on a camera I shouldn’t embarrass to use? Wait! Am I an–gasp–IDIOT?

Sure, I failed my driver’s license test two–or was it three?–times but that was in the WAY, WAY past and my brother should just FORGET ABOUT IT because now, when I put my mind to do something, I do it. Especially when I want it this bad.

See link for best photos at end of this post.

My prospects of failure fluctuated between humbling and mortifying. 

It didn’t help when I showed up at Rio Grande Valley and spent the first two days taking photos of new birds in spectacular habitats with my bracketing exposure button on lock. Geeeeee, why is every third photo either OVER or UNDER exposed? 

It also didn’t help when, after spending two hours alone in a blind with a superb opportunity to photograph gatherings of Scaled Quail and Plain Chachalacas, I discovered I was shooting on easy exposure adjustment of +1. Geeeeee, why do all my photos look SO WASHED OUT???? (Thanks to Ruth Hoyt for setting me straight on these little oversights.)

But at a certain point, when your planets align and when commitment to the task overlaps with luck and opportunity, it is indeed possible to take your skills to the next level. 

By the end of my photo safari, I learned I CAN do this.  It will take more time, more focus, and less movement while photographing, and a whole bunch of other stuff, but I can do this well enough to suit my fancy. 

And I have the photos to prove it. 

Future posts will take you through the nitty gritty of the day’s birds and digital revelations, so if nothing else you can feel the sense of optimism for your own photographic exploits. But today I leave you with the best images from that day. I decided to post them on a full-page layout for optimum viewing.

Click here to see my favorite images from the photo safari >>

Happy Thanksgiving. Wishing you warmth and abundance this week.

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Tagged as: bird watching, Birds, photography, Travel