John Gordon/Listening to Birds: John Neville

Wednesday, 4 December 2013

Another Day in Paradise Pt 2/Robert Bateman

Dec 3/4 2013 Boundary Bay, Delta B.C. Sunny and Cold.

What can I say, the sun was out and there were birds everywhere. For starters, there were three long-eared owls all perched in one tree. The birds were sunning themselves while trying to sleep. Everyone loves an owl, passersby on horseback, construction workers, joggers, dog walkers all stopped to view the birds. I heard later that everyone kept a respectable distance EXCEPT for a few overzealous photographers who in their rush to secure the perfect pose eventually forced two of the birds to re-locate to another tree. Shame on you! We all get hyped when we see a new bird but take a hint from the birding community and respect the bird's space. This type of asinine behaviour gives us photographers a bad name.

Long-eared Owl (Asio otus)

Here is my shot taken from a respectable distance after which I left for 72nd Ave where the following images below were taken.

My target bird was the American Tree Sparrow which I found just east of the 72nd Ave parking lot. I 'phissed' it to the tree in front of me with the sun on my back.

American Tree Sparrow (Spizella arboreo)

Fox Sparrow (Passerella iliaca)

On composition and Robert Bateman

Last week I attended the Langley Field Naturalists monthly meeting and a very interesting talk by B.C. Nature President John Neville. His talk centred around the calls and behaviour of the raptors of Canada. The talk was fascinating and we all had many questions.

As you may know John has spent years recording birds many of which can be found on his excellent Cd's.

As a sidebar to his presentation, which he delivered in braille were artist Robert Bateman's finely detailed paintings.

For years I have stuck quite closely to photographic compositional principles such as the two-thirds rule, use of leading lines (like the Fox Sparrow shot above) and other ways of making images more pleasing for the viewer. However, I was really struck by Bateman's use of space within the picture frame. In some of the images, the bird would be right on the very, very edge of the photo and I mean almost touching the edge or other times smack in the middle. The result were quite different from the close crops many of us fall into the trap of producing time and time again. Both have their merits but sometimes we forget in our rush to get the perfect close-up view that the bird's environment is often forgotten.

I learnt much that night, not only from John but about how my personal vision may be being stifled by always trying to conforming to the 'right kind of composition' as well as shooting too tight.
This something that I will work on in the new year as a self assignment.