Showcasing the beauty of Mother Nature
Continuing on with the hummingbirds!
The photos I have of the male rufous hummingbird in flight (so far!) are not as sharp as I would like, but this one of him paused at the feeder highlights his beautiful colouring.
He didn’t stay long as the female kept coming around and chasing him off!
1/500 sec, f5.6, ISO1250
I was so happy to see my first hummingbirds of the year this past weekend, and was able to spend some time relaxing on my parent’s porch, camera at the ready to capture a few shots. I’m quite pleased with the results, so there just might be a hummingbird of the day around here for the next little while 🙂
1/200 sec, f5.6, ISO 100 with speed light
1/200 left significant motion blur of the wings, and with the light, the fastest I tried was 1/640, and that didn’t even come close to freezing the wing motion.
The long grass was doing nothing to enhance the photo, and the Jackass penguin has only a limited amount of pale pink colouring around the eyes, so I decided to do a black and white conversion. After a hectic day, unwinding with some editing seemed like a good choice, and the penguin made me smile. Mission accomplished 🙂
1/320sec, f5.6, ISO200 – conversion in Silver Efex
Penguin at Boulder Beach, Cape Town, South Africa, March 2013.
The clear, cold weather over the weekend brought with it a lot of shivering, but also a lot of great photos opportunities. I had Spencer with me, so I was more concerned with his well-being and enjoyment than getting the perfect shot… but, I still managed to get a few that I really like.
I hadn’t set out with a theme in mind, but the strongest photos of the weekend were all silhouettes (a clear topic for the blog – hurray!)
The weather on the weekend was not conducive to having my camera out, and none of my indoor projects have inspired me this week. So, I decide instead to experiment with new software on a photo I have worked on before.
It’s been several weeks since I went on my last photo walk with my class, but life has gotten in the way of putting together a post of my favourite photos.
The purpose of the trip was to concentrate on the altered landscape, but instead I was focused on all the birds. I rarely see swans in the local area, and on the drive in went past a field filled with them. There was no where to pull over to take a photo, and I was glad when I arrived at Finn Slough and had another opportunity for a photo.
I was lucky enough to have my camera while out on a walk early yesterday morning along the dikes. It was quite foggy, and I was hoping to capture a few shots for a project I am working on. I saw some moment in the tall grasses along the edge of the river, and managed to capture a sequence of a Cooper’s Hawk hunting. I didn’t manage to see in the end if he or she was success in the hunt, but it was still a great thing to witness. The thick fog adds a bit of a vintage feel to the pictures.
I’m currently taking another digital photography course, so I have been busy the last few weeks snapping photos to meet very specific parameters. I was happy as the assignment this week was for landscape photos, both natural and urban.
I don’t yet have a macro lens, but I do really like the results of the close ups shown below – even though they really make me feel as if fall is on the way.
On a larger scale, I captured this lovely sunset near an area where I normally walk Spencer. I often see ducks, geese, heron and the occasional hawk and bald eagle in the area, as well as coyotes if we head out early enough.
Londolozi is well known for the number of leopards they have living within the bounds of the property, and I was lucky enough to see three of them during my visit. They were elusive at first though, and it wasn’t until our third afternoon game drive that we finally saw our first leopard; the lions stole the show for the first half of our visit.
It was around 4:30 when Talley took a call that a leopard had been spotted with a fresh kill, and even though the viewing was not likely to yield great photos, we headed in that direction anyways, since we had yet to see a leopard.
When we found him, he was deep under some bushes with an impala ram. He had already had his fill, but was still working on pulling the fur off of the impala. The view from the vehicle was obstructed by the bushes, while I managed to get a couple shots and a short video clip, mostly I just watched.
We came across this leopard, as well as others, the next morning. The photographic opportunities and the story of that morning viewing were amazing!
