New 2017 Calendars

My new calendars for 2017 are out.

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It's Not Just Luck Hummingbird Photography Tips

This photo is the result of trial and error that basically took me all day to get. I achieved part of my goal (freezing the hummingbird wings) but the other part of my goal I did not. My next goal is to figure out how to light that beautiful red gorget for maximum color. This photo was created  partly from hummingbird photo tips from one of my favorite hummingbird photographers Gregory Scott and partly from lots of patience. Check out Gregory Scotts amazing work HERE. Not only are his photos amazing but he's a great human being as well, willing to share tips with other photographers to help them rather than keeping all of his photo secrets to himself. I wanted to pay it forward so here are some tips that will hopefully help another photographer who loves these little flying gems as much as I do. 

 One of  the tips I learned from Gregory Scott was to use a macro lens to get great detail. Most people including myself believed that you needed a really long telephoto to get hummingbird shots but this is not always the case. For this photo I used a 105 mm 2.8 macro lens on a tripod. The reason for the macro lens is detail. You can set his to a really large f-stop number like 18- 22 and this helps a lot with your depth of field for focusing so if you prefocus the focus is a little more forgiving. The camera was set 3-4 feet away from the feeder.  I prefocused in the area where I wanted the hummingbird to hover and sat in a chair with my cable release in hand and waited and shot and waited and shot until I got the right combination of the little flying gem hovering where I wanted and the light to freeze the wings. 

The settings for this photo were F-stop 18, shutter speed 320, ISO 200 and 3 flahes set to manual 1/32 power including the on camera pop up flash that triggered the other two Nikon S-B800 flases. I also used a piece of foam core board that you could purchase at any craft store for the back ground. The back ground was placed about 4 or 5 feet away from the feeder where I was trying to get the hummingbirds to hover. 

Most people think that hummingbird flight is frozen with a fast shutter speed but that is not the case. It's flash duration that freezes the wings. And believe it or not this is done but setting the flash to a lower power rather than higher power. Bigger isn't always better. These settings are not written in stone as far as the camera settings so put your camera on manual and just take some test shots to get the light to where you want it by adjusting the shutter speed and f stop combos until you get what you want. I also used the lowest ISO I could because these keeps the noise down. 

In order to get the flahses to do what you want, you need to have control over the light which you can't do in sunlight. I shot this in the shade on a cloudy day and I had the best results around 4 pm when the sun behind the clouds went behind the house. These were all shot on our deck using the shade from eves of our house but you could do this in your yard if you have deeply shady spot. I used a sprig of flowers inserted into a hummingbird feeder port and I taped off the other 3 ports to get the hummingbird to hover where I wanted. 

I photograph on a budget so I have two tripods and two off camera flashes. I used one tripod for the camera and another for one of the flashes but since I only have two tripods for my 3rd tripod I used the arm of a chair and some electrical tape to hold the flash in place. The other part of my studio was the piece of white foam core board that I used for the back ground.

 I hope these tips are helpful to others learning their way in photography and on a budget like myself. I'd like to be able to afford more flashes but in the mean time I'll make due with what I have and continue to try to get the most of what I have. 

Thanks for stopping by to read my blog and for following my progress as a nature photographer. If you'd like to see more of my work, click on the photo below. 

Helping Our Feathered Friends

This weekend took on a sense of urgency for our feathered friends. The temperatures in the valley were ranging from 5 degrees to the teens but with the wind gusts of up to 45 miles an hour the wind chills got as low as 25 below zero! Some people don't think that we humans should interefere with nature and wildlife...but the way I look at it is that since we already have altered the balance of nature by our presence here on planet earth, it's up to us to help take care of our fellow creatures. We had a steady stream of birds at the feeder all day long today. We kept them fed with home made peanut butter suet, rose hips, black oil sunflower seeds and safflower seeds. We were even surprised by a visit from a rather large female pileated woopecker. We also saw cardinals, red bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, juncos, purple finches, gold finches, titmice, chickadees, nuthatches and one of my personal favorites, wrens.

Good Morning It's A Great Day to Be A Photographer

Some days are better than others. Today was certainly one of those that falls into the better category. My morning routine is to wake up in the morning, drink a nice cup of French roast coffee and check my emails and Facebook. I had been feeling a little blue about my photography lately and started wondering if I should continue to put so much energy into it since my sales had drastically dropped off. Well this morning the powers that be told me loud and clear to keep going! 

 I first saw a message from a friend on Facebook that said they had seen my photo on the Washington D.C.NBC 4 Weather News . I submit my photos to them when I get a pretty sunrise or snow scene and sometimes I'm lucky enough to have a photo shown during the weather segment. Thank you Tom Kierein! 

Then I got another message in Facebook from   Shenandoah River Outfitters requesting to use one of my photos for thier website in exchange for two free kayak trips on the beautiful Shenandoah River!  How could I refuse?  The photo above is the one that Shenandoah River Outfitters wants to use on their website. 

The photo below is the one that was shown on the Washington D.C.NBC 4 Weather News this morning. 

To anyone reading this blog, I hope you all have a great day too! :-)

The Colors of Winter

Winter is often devoid of color here in the Shenandoah Valley when all of the deciduous trees shed their leaves and the farmer's fields turn brown... but sometimes we are blessed with vivid colors in the middle of winter like this double rainbow that graced the valley yesterday.


 

 After the clouds parted we were blessed with this colorful sky. The sky appeared to be on fire with warm and welcome tangerine and orange hues. I'm so thankful for the colorful days of winter that give me hope that Spring really is just around the corner!










If you would like to support my photographic endeavors, please click below to purchase greeting cards or prints. I create my photography on a shoe string budget and do not pay for any advertising, so please feel free to help spread the word about my photography and share my blog or photos! Thanks for any help in allowing me to follow my passion, it's much appreciated! :-)


 

Beauty In The Ordinary

So I went down to the Hawksbill Greenway with my big lens hoping to see a kingfisher or a great blue heron...but there were none to be seen anywhere along the Hawksbill creek. BUT there were ducks everywhere! I didn't find the flashy king fisher or the regal great blue heron but the beautfiul glint of green in the sunlight caught my eye on this ordinary mallard duck.I guess beauty is where you find it.  :-)








 

Why Am I A Photographer?

   

Why am I a photographer?

I’ve always been fascinated by photography.  At 6 or 7 years old I begged my Dad to let me take a picture with his camera and although he probably knew that it might be a waste of a little film (yes I started with film I’m that old) he let me take a photo anyways. I even got to see it in our family slide show. It wasn’t exactly a masterpiece. In fact it was just a photo of a street sign! But the fact that he let me take even just one photo created a seed in me that would someday turn into my love of photography today.My mom also fostered that seed unknowingly. At the time, I didn’t realize how special it was to have a mom who had lived overseas and had seen the world. I guess I assumed everyone’s mom did that.  We didn’t have a huge color TV growing up but we did have a slide projector and a big white wall. On that wall I would see magical places that my mother had traveled to. I saw slides of places like Mt. Fuji, I saw slides of a Japanese ice festival where a magical temporary city was created entirely of ice! And I even saw slides of Germany where our family came from. And of course we always got to see the family vacations recorded on slide film so we could relive our adventures like traveling northward to the California redwoods or the giant spruce forests of Oregon on our annual summer camping trips.

I’ve been photographing for years now and if someone were to ask me why I am a photographer, this is what I'd tell them. 

I see beauty in a sky or a flower or a bird or butterfly or even in the smallest insect and when I see something that is amazing to me I want to share that with others and I want them to be amazed too.  I also get great joy from bringing other people happiness so it’s only natural I guess that when I see something that inspires me,  I want to photograph it and share it with others in the hopes that it brings joy and inspiration to them as well.

Photography is also an historic record. My mother in law used to photograph the whole family at our family gatherings. We would all try to hide from the camera and complain that we didn’t want our photo taken but you know what? We all couldn't wait to see the great shots she got  when the photos would come back from the lab!  I started bringing a camera to the family gatherings as well and then there were two family “paparazzis” to hide from.  And now we have all gotten in on the fun of taking photos.  Just the other day my husband I found a suitcase full of old family photos.  This suitcase is really a family history book. Did you ever notice when there is a tragedy like a flood or hurricane and homes are destroyed that it’s those precious family photo albums and framed photos that are the cherished item and not a table or a couch?  So I guess the second part of my “why am I a photographer?” question would be to capture moments in time to share with family and friends at a later date, or more simply put to be a history keeper.

Do I shoot photos to make money? The answer to this one would be yes and no. There was a time when I thought “wouldn’t it be great to quit my day job and do photography for a living?”.  I tried shooting weddings and even did some portrait work in addition to trying to get published and selling my nature photographs. I even tried stock photography for a while too. I started to realize when I put too much emphasis on the making money aspect of it that it became stressful and I lost some of that creative spark. It wasn’t as much fun anymore.  Sure it’s great to make money but it can also become a pressure which actually in the long run, hurts the ability to make money when your creativity suffers. Since then I’ve come to the realization that it’s best just to keep it at a level that is fun. Since changing perspective from “how will I make money with my photos” to “what can I shoot to share and inspire?” I’ve actually began to make a little money. I haven’t abandoned the money aspect and I still try to market my photos to sell them but I have a day job that I love and photography is just a fun thing I do when I'm not at my day job.

Point and Shoot Macro Photography Tips

My new to me but used 105 mm 2.8 lens for my SLR camera will be arriving tomorrow. Technically it's sitting in the local post office but they didn't deliver my pick up slip until later in the day so I don't get to pick it up until Monday now. 

In the mean time as I anxiously await my new lens, I decided to look for bugs in our yard with my point and shoot set to macro this morning.  I didn't find any bugs so I opted for an easier choice and I "stalked" the flowers in our yard instead. 

I'm discovering that the little point and shoot has a really great macro setting that shows good detail but the only draw back is that the depth of field is so deep that the background tends to look a little busy. I found a way to remedy that in these two photos though. The daffodil was a super easy fix. I just cropped way in and that eliminated the busy background.The ornamental plum however required a little more work and Photoshop technique.

Recently I discovered a technique to manipulate a point and shoot photo's background to look like it was taken on an SLR camera with a shallow depth of field.

Here is a description/tutorial of this technique and how I created the shot of the ornamental plum blossoms.

Since I shot this on my point and shoot camera the original shot looked like this:

Using a Photoshop program (I use Photoshop Elements 11) I first made a duplicate layer and did a little cloning on the petals to clean up some of the harsh shadows since I shot this in direct sunlight. After I was satisfied with that I did a select all and copy. Then I hit control D to get rid of the selected area (since I had hit copy it's in the program's cue and still ready to paste). Then, working on the new duplicate layer that I created I go into Filter and then Gaussian blur. You can adjust the amount of the effect while in Gaussian blur to the degree you like and you can also adjust the opacity slider  for this after you apply the effect since it is on a layer. Next I click on edit and paste. This will make the non-Gaussian blur layer the top layer. I prefer to work with the Gaussian layer on top and then use the eraser tool to bring back the parts that I don't want to be blurred. To do this you will need to click on to the non-Gaussian blur layer and drag it down on top of the Gaussian blur layer. Now you will see that the two layers have changed position. Click back onto your top layer which should be the Gaussian blur layer now. Next use the opacity slider to pull the percentage down far enough so that you can see the image underneath it well enough to work with an eraser tool. The next and tedious part is to erase the parts that you do not want the Gaussian blur effect on. In this instance it's the flower. Once you have all the parts erased that you want to show through just adjust the opacity slider again to the degree you want for the background. For this photo I was able to eliminate our chimney and the trees in the back ground which makes the flower pop a little more now. And here is the result:

I hope this little tutorial was helpful. Stay tuned and as I learn more I'll share what I learn. Thanks for stopping by to read my blog. Happy shooting.

Photographing The Small World

I took the plunge today and got it! Today I purchased a Nikon 105 mm 2.8 lens. All those months of saving from my photography earnings have paid off. I'm really excited about photographing the small world. It should be arriving here just in time for Spring and all the little wildflowers that pop up on the forest floor. The Virginia blue bells have started blooming and hopefully there will still be some left when the lens gets here.

I'm making a mental list of what I want to shoot with the new lens. Wildflowers will be first but I'm hoping I can get some closeup detailed shots of butterflies and dragonflies as well. I'm also going to stalk those cute little lizards that hang out on our rock piles in the yard. I'm also curious to see how close the hummingbirds will let me get with this lens. I've actually missed some shots of the hummingbirds because they fly too close to my 70-200 lens and they are too close to focus on. This lens shouldn't have that issue as the focusing distance is much closer than the 70-200 lens. 

Another bonus to this lens though is that it is also a good portrait lens (at least that's what I've been reading). I love my 70-200 2.8 lens but it will be nice to have one that is smaller but still a great versatile lens. 

Stay tuned...I should have some images of the small world on the mountain in the next couple of weeks or so.