pelican

Two heads are better than one - Florida Pelican Fine Art Photography

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quizzical brown pelican - Florida Fine Art Photography - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160thThe many brown pelicans that make St. Petersburg home are a frequent photography subject of mine.  These birds are often very approachable, allowing one to look deep into the bird's eye, a rare human-non-human-animal close-up encounter.  I am always curious what animals are thinking.  Since they supposedly have a much different perception of time, how does this affect how they think?  If pelicans cannot think of the far future and who knows how far back their memories of past events go, what occupies their minds?  Perhaps nothing enabling them to live in a blissful present?  I often get the impression pelicans look upon humans with contempt, "go on with your life and quite gawking at me," I imagine them saying.  Are humans the only animals that feel wonder toward other animals?  Does a pelican look upon a great blue heron and think it is beautiful or merely a competitor for food?

unimpressed brown pelican - St. Petersburg Fine Art Photography - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1250th


Florida Brown Pelican Fly Hunt Sleep at The Pier St. Petersburg

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FLY -- Brown Pelican in flight St. Petersburg Florida -- EXIF: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1250thRegular readers will know that I enjoy and often photograph brown pelicans.  They are not a rare bird around this part of Florida at all.  In fact, it would be rare to go to any coastal area of St. Petersburg and not see one.  However, I find myself continually drawn to photographing them despite my usual instinct being to not photograph things that are commonly photographed.  Plus, I have a bit of unfinished business as I still want to photograph a pelican in flight hovering just over the surface of the water as they are apt to do.  Catching one in flight like above requires seeing the bird approach from distance, tracking it as it swoops in, then of course have sufficient shutter speed to freeze it in mid-air.  Maybe some luck is required too?

HUNT - brown pelican looking for lunch at The Pier St. Petersburg Florida -- EXIF: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1600thI used my Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens for all these shots.  It is not a very long lens but The Pier provides a very close vantage point for photographing pelicans as they fly, hunt and sleep.  To photograph these three different female brown pelicans I observed and studied their behavior.  Of course the sleeping one was not a challenge, but the flying one took a sharp eye to find and photograph and I needed to follow the hunting pelican from pier top to pier top until I could catch her while still standing at the ready.

SLEEP -- brown pelican catching a little shut eye at The Pier in St. Petersburg Florida -- EXIF: f/5.6 ISO 200 1/800thAs these photographs illustrate, brown pelicans do not all exhibit the same behavior at the same time of day.  Some flew, some hunted and many slept.  One day, I will photograph one of you skimming over the water's surface!  Until then, expect more pelican photographs of another nature.

These brown pelican photographs are available for commercial license and fine art print, inquire today!

Pelican vs. Great Blue Heron Sunset on Snell Isle Battle

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brown pelican vs great blue heron - f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1000th

Two of the largest birds in Florida are the brown pelican and the great blue heron.  They are a common site around Snell Isle.  I have seen both and photographed both many times in the past, but I never caught them in semi-battle with each other.  This particular great blue heron often likes to stand on the edge of a small dock nearby.  I see him/her on my evening walks with Kiki.  This brown pelican too likes to frequent the water around here dive bombing in for a late dinner.

Well, this time the pelican was diving too close to the great blue heron and she/he got cranky and the showdown pictured above took place.  The pelican was determined to eat, the great blue heron was determined to hold her/his ground.  In the end, the pelican moved on and the great blue heron returned to his/her usual stoic stance.   

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    • Photography Tip - long lens for landscapes

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    Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/8 ISO 200 1/500th - Pelicans in front of new Dali Museum St. PetersburgYou do not need to use a wide angle lens to make a landscape or panorama shot.  For the above photograph of two pelicans out on The Pier with the St. Petersburg waterfront in the distant background I used my favorite Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens at 80mm.  To create the panorama look I simply cropped the image.  Shooting at f/8 and 80mm allowed the distant background to not be totally blurred out (bokeh) while at the same time still create a unique sense of depth to the image that one cannot produce using a wide angle lens.  

    In the comments below link to your long lens landscape/panorama shots.  

    DSLR Photography Lesson with Cindy & her new Nikon D90

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    Cindy is now on the Nikon team during our 3rd lesson at The Pier in St. PetersburgI last had a lesson with Cindy in August 2010.  It was our second lesson with her Canon T1i.  Well, since then she has given away the Canon to her nephew and joined the Nikon team with the purchase of a Nikon D90!  I will ask Cindy to write in her own words why she made the switch from Canon to Nikon and update this post accordingly.

    Even though Cindy was already familiar with aperture, ISO, white balance and focus modes, there was a change in terminology for her to learn and how to adjust those settings physically the Nikon way.  To practice this we returned to a favorite location of ours, The Pier and all its pelican residents.  

    The main thing we paid attention to during the lesson was maintaining a shutter speed of 1/500th of a second as this summer Cindy will be taking a grand trip up to Alaska to photograph whales and eagles.  As whales breach and eagles soar, a fast shutter time is mandatory in order to be able to freeze their motion.  

    So we set her Nikon D90 to manual mode, the shutter speed to 1/500th of a second and varied her aperture according to what subject matter we were photographing at the time.  For distant subjects (i.e. whales) I had Cindy set her aperture to f/5.6 and for wider action shots f/11 keeping the shutter speed locked at 1/500th (or faster).  So sometimes, especially when using f/11, increasing the ISO was necessary to maintain a good exposure.  

    It was an interesting lesson for me as it is always nice to be able to address a specific photography need from a student with the goal of producing great nature shots in the future.  Cindy is already booked for three more lessons so there will be plenty of updates to come as I do my best to prepare her for photographing in the Alaskan wilderness!  

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    • Pelican in the Matrix

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    Brown Pelican - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/4 ISO 200 1/800thVarious quotes from songs, movies, books, etc. get stuck, or rather burned into my mind and float to the forefront of my visual cortex at their leisure.  One such quote is, "It's the question that brought you here.  You know the question, just as I did."  "What is the Matrix?"  Since 1999 those four words spoken by my boy Keanu have become like canon to me.  Perhaps I have not revealed before my true desired profession, that being:  philosopher-poet.  The matrix itself appeals to me because of the ability to alter the perception of time within it . . . time being another obsession of mine (example time essay).  

    In my mind the physics of the true Matrix exist, and I burn energy in attempt to project that reality onto the common world.  

    Photography helps show evidence of the Matrix, as seen above.

    Photography Tip - Previsualization of bleach bypass

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    Previsualized for bleach bypass filter - Nikon D300 Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D @ f/11 ISO 200 1/400thOne photography tip to keep in mind as you start to progress as a photographer is previsualization.  This is the process by which you see the final photograph before you even put the camera up to your eye.  I was teaching a 1-on-1 DSLR Photography Lesson at John's Pass Village recently in very poor, harsh mid-afternoon Florida light.  This meant there was no reason for me to look for shots that would produce great color or exposure.  So I did not.  Instead, I switched my mind to looking for possible black & white or similar photo opportunities.  

    As soon as I saw all these birds sitting in a neat row on the railing of a pier this popped into my head:  use the rectangular shape to frame the shot, post-process using a bleach bypass filter (found in Color Efex Pro).  How was this able to instantly come to my mind?  Because I had already started the previsualization process when I accessed the natural light situation.  I gave myself a very specific type of shot to focus on looking for, so once a possibility was seen, I knew right away how I wanted to photograph it.

    This is what the above scene looked like to the naked eye:

    Being able to see the potential for a shot is KEY to producing consistently satisfying imagesThe next time you set out with your DSLR, try to previsualize shots before you even think about pushing the shutter.  This will not only likely help you produce better photographs, it will cut down on the number of shots you just immediately delete when you get home.

    Post a link to your previsualization results in the comments below . . .