Why will I probably use this photo in my next book this autumn, 'Birds with an attitude'? I have perfect flying shots towards the camera with and without capture/food and a lot of other material. Maybe I will use one of those too, but I will probably use this not because it's perhaps what anybody would call the best, but because it maybe differs at least some little, little from the other action photos with the roller or the rollers. Action photos - compared to personal portraits - have a tendency of being anonymous, as Fritz Pölking very wisely once wrote.
By the way, rollers do really have an attitude, they are well-known for attacking much bigger birds of prey without hesitation. At least three mornings I could witness from Bences house how the roller attacked a nesting kestrel nearby, but finally the kestrel chased it away for good. And then the rollers had to choose one of the nesting boxes that where last year being set up nearby - with the permission from the authorities of the national park.
Puztaser, Hungary, still morning light but going harder for very minute and not exactly 100 % direction from behind me
Welcome Brutus. Nice to see you at our place. With this image, I would have preferred sharp focus on the pissed off bird.
ps: Brutus is Sweden's top bird photographer and has published more than a few books.
BIRDS AS ART Blog: great info and lessons, lots of images with our legendary BAA educational Captions; we will not sell you junk. 30+ years of long lens experience/e-mail with gear questions.
BIRDS AS ART Online Store: we will not sell you junk. 35 years of long lens experience. Please e-mail with gear questions.
Check out the new SONY e-Guide and videos that I did with Patrick Sparkman here. Ten percent discount for BPN members,
Hi Brutus Saw these for the first time but didnt get a shot like this. Agree with Doug it would have been nice if the infocus roller's head was completely clear.
thanks for comments. When I first reviewed this image I did in fact neglect it, first because of the cut of the beak. And also I was thinking: wouldn't it be better if the flying bird would have been sharp?
Later starting to reviesw photos for the next book I thought: Well, I have the last kind of photos, but they are the common flight shots of a bird coming towards you. Are they nice.? Yes. But I have seen those ones, and also I have not so few of them in my own collection. But I didn't have this one.
An interesting image, but it really doesn't appeal to me. Hopefully no offense is taken, but I find the out-of-focus bird very distracting for two reasons: 1) the most interesting action in the photo is the flying bird. (and I guess I don't understand why action subjects necessarily tend to be any more anonymous than portraits--unless deliberately made so by blurring).
2) The OOF bird is also the closest to the camera, which tends to make me view it as the main subject and the background bird as more complementary. I think the image would have worked much better with the flying bird in focus and the background portrait OOF.
I think your idea is to have the OOF bird (particularly the wing) serve as a frame for the background bird, but that just doesn't work for me, particularly with the beak merging with the wing.
You know, this internet thing makes it a very small world indeed. I went to a house showing in Orlando today and on the coffee table I saw a book called "Between the Wingtips." I flipped through it and made a mental note to order a copy.
Seeing this thread and Artie's note about Brutus' books reminded me, so I popped over to Amazon to order BtW and check on Brutus' offerings...
Turns out that BtW is actually one of Brutus' books! I ordered it. Amazing.
Love the image, Brutus! Glad to have you contributing here at BPN.
Rollers
Reply With Quote
