Brown Pelican photographed in St. Petersburg Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/800th white background enhanced in Photoshop
Living in St. Petersburg there is ample opportunity to photograph brown pelicans about as close up as you dare. For the most part, the pelicans themselves are not that bothered about a long lens being pointed at them and seem to tolerate it, though I would not go so far as to say they like it. I wanted to make some fine art pelican images with white backgrounds by purposefully over exposing the shots when I made them in the field, or in this case the St. Petersburg Pier. I cleaned up the white backgrounds digitally in Photoshop as needed.
Brown Pelican awash in daylight - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/400thShooting in bright light makes it easy to overexpose the images on purpose by using a large aperture along with a relatively slow shutter speed and shooting into the sun.
Closeup of a brown pelican - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/1250thSince I was shooting at a focal length of 200mm with a brown pelican standing right next to me, I saw it as an opportunity to photograph details of a pelican, rather than the entire bird, as seen in the above shot focused on the pelican's eye and upper beak texture.