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

• more images from this evening featuring the great blue heron alone

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.   

Great Blue Heron sunset silhouette - Snell Isle - f/4 ISO 200 1/1600thIt is far, far too rare that I take my Nikon D300 out for personal shooting, even to my own back patio.  This past Sunday night, most likely due to the lack of sports on TV, I was sitting on the back patio enjoying the view of Smacks Bayou and the setting sun when I noticed a pelican diving and a great blue heron getting annoyed by that diving.  I saw this as an opportunity to continue my slow moving Snell Isle Photo Series.

Great Blue Heron sunset silhouette - Snell Isle - f/4 ISO 200 1/1600thThe conflict with the pelican I will save for another post, while here I will only feature the placid and mostly stoic stance of the great blue heron.  I very rarely make silhouette shots, mostly because they are too easy and too common, but recently my interest in them has started to grow.  Manual exposure mode is a must of course to produce them.  A fast shutter speed causes everything that is not the sun or its immediate surroundings to remain dark, producing a silhouette shot.  

Great Blue Heron walking sunset silhouette - Snell Isle Florida - f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1000thGreat blue herons in this area of Florida have little fear of people.  They are quite approachable.  This means with only my trusty Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens, I can get close enough to pretty much get as tight of a shot as I want.  They walk very deliberately, never scurrying.  I like that.

Great blue heron sunset silhouette - Snell Isle - f/4 ISO 200 1/1600thThe great blue heron featured in these shots did not mind to be photographed at all.  In fact, I believe the same great blue heron returned to my back patio last night and stood just a few meters away dead staring at me.  It was very strange.  This bird is over three feet tall, almost person like.  We were unable to clearly communicate to each other what the other wanted.  Perhaps the dialogue will continue tonight?

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Malissa waiting for a great blue heron to show its head at John's Pass Village - DSLR Photography LessonFor my second DSLR Photography Lesson with Malissa (1st lesson) we met at John's Pass Village on Madeira Beach.  We started out having a review session on the four primary settings one needs to know how to set for making any given photograph.  This time Malissa brought a notepad and took detailed notes as I gave default settings to use for photographing children's sports, how to get a good exposure indoors, etc.  

After our chat we walked down the long row of shops along the main street of John's Pass Village looking for a good palm tree to photograph to send to one of Malissa's friends who lives in a much colder climate.  This was a chance to show the decision making process for which lens to use (wide or long) and what surrounding foreground elements to include, or not include, in the composition.  

We later had a chance to try some wildlife photography as there are many birds hanging out on the boardwalk and this time some dolphins playing just around the pilings also!  I suggested that Malissa zoom in tight on a great blue heron sitting on a rooftop, as showing it standing on metal would take the viewer out of nature thinking.  So if you can see only bird in the shot, even if you have to compose its feet out of the frame, that is much better than letting some humanmade object intrude.

John's Pass Village on that afternoon provided us with a very good variety of subject matter to practice shooting with.  Now with this second lesson of knowledge and her notes I look forward to seeing some of Malissa's improved action and nature shots! 

Pass-A-Grille Beach -- Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 & SB-600 off cameraIt is hard to say which Pinellas Country beach is my favorite to photograph at, it may just come down to where I have been the luckiest with sunsets and random things, like when at Pass-A-Grille Beach a great blue heron walks into the frame while trying to photograph a bride.  Such was the case in the above photograph with Rosa, the latest entry in my Bride Series.  

Pass-A-Grille Beach -- Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 & SB-600 off cameraHowever, the great blue heron did linger a bit too long and I finally had to shoo it along its way in order to get a clean background.  I am not even sure Rosa was aware of the large bird behind.  I had no trouble at all getting Rosa to show real emotion for these portraits.  I am always grateful for that!

Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 & SB-600 off cameraBesides having a very beautiful dress, and being unafraid of getting it sandy, Rosa wore a fabulous veil that as soon as I saw it as she arrived at the beach I knew would later make for some great bride portraits.  I had to carefully position my two strobes in order to light the veil and her face while trying to keep shadows to a minimum, all before Rosa's arms got too tired.  I have subsequently used the above image on the wedding version of my business cards.

Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 & SB-600 off cameraWhen everything comes together:  weather, sunset, bride's emotion, dress, props (veil) it makes photography a real pleasure for both the photographer and the bride knowing that the results are going to be so satisfying.

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Great Blue Heron - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/1600 -0.67 ev

There are birds all over Florida.  Great Blue Herons like the one above are often seen on beaches, and even on back patios!  This series is meant to be a modest and/or amusing collection of random bird photographs.  When I first looked at that great blue heron, I thought it looked like it was in prison.  So since I could not get a clean shot of the bird, I chose to make use of the obstruction.  I just made sure to use a single focus point and put it right on the GBR's eye.

Seagull (with bokeh) - Nikkon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/8 ISO 200 1/800thThere is no more common bird than a seagull (assuming one lives by the sea).  Why I chose this photograph was for its ultra creamy bokeh produced by the fantastic Nikkor AF ED 80-200mm f/2.8D lens, a great bargain alternative to the much more expensive Nikkor AF-S 70-200mm VR f/2.8G lens (not even to mention the crazy expensive VR II version).  I first bought my 80-200mm lens (a used one) just under two years ago, and was amazed by its bokeh the first time I shot with it, and remain so to this very day.  

(rainbow?) pigeon - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1250thMaybe the pigeon is more common than the seagull in Florida?  Still, I chose to include this photo because of the repeat of color on the pigeon's neck matching the color of the bokeh.  With bird photography, bokeh can really enhance a shot from just being a snapshot of a common bird to a photograph of a common scene shown in a way that cannot be seen by just standing there.  The quality of bokeh actually varies greatly between lenses.  Before the 80-200mm lens, I had the Nikkor AF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G lens.  At first I thought the latter's bokeh was good.  However, upon first seeing the bokeh produced by the 80-200mm, I was stunned at how much creamier it was.  Selling the 18-200mm lens was the first thing I did out of learned photographic knowledge.

diving brown pelican - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens ISO 400 f/4 1/5000thThis female brown pelican was a millimeter away from breaking the water's surface in search of her dinner.  I made sure to use a very fast shutter speed in order to be able to freeze her plunging dive.  Thankfully, she made dive after dive so had several chances to capture her.  However, like all of these shots, I was not out to purposefully photograph birds at the time.  Three of the shots I made while teaching a DSLR photography lesson and the other was made during a portrait session.  Nowadays I do not have much chance to to photograph Florida's many birds, hence the start of this collection series!