Spent the weekend with my family at the New Jersey shore and visited one of my favorite shorebirding spots. The diversity was not great this year but there were tons of birds around to watch and shoot. This Sanderling was photograhped on Brigantine Island shortly before sunset which is by far my favorite time of day for photography. When photographing shorebirds, I typically find a clean part of the beach and lay and patiently wait for the birds to come to me. The spot that I chose had waves that were breaking just beyond where I was which you can see on the right edge of the frame. I positioned myself on a large and mostly flat area of beach that had a few dips here and there which made for interesting patterns with the receding water. When shooting like this I have always found that the birds will practically walk right up to me as they do not see me as a threat. I picked this frame to post as it shows a Sanderling with quite a nice catch.
Canon 1DX and Canon 500 f4 ii + 1.4x iii. ISO 500, F7.1, SS 1/3200. Processed with DPP 4.6.3 and PS.
Really nice light pose and the sanderling has quite a mouthful. I like the little drops of water around the beak too. The shift in blues and breaking wave is nice as well and helps ground the shot against the water angle. Details are nice as well. TFS
Nice POV for this little shorebird.
Good solid techs and the prey item makes this shot unique.
I feel that the image needs a bit of CW rotation.
If mine, I would get rid of the smaller lower catch light in the eye.
Gail
It's funny Gail, I went back and forth on the leveling so many times. There are a few things going on. The horizon was not level from an uneven wave that was crashing. Plus the ground the bird was standing on was sloped in a different direction. I liked the different lines in the picture and that is another reason I picked this photo. Actually what would you do with this? If I level from where it is standing then the horizon is way off and the opposite of course as well. I tried to leave it close knowing that both would be a bit off. Those lines are sloped towards each other so it really confused me as what to do.
Sanderling with late evening snack
Reply With Quote
