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Winter Swans
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A couple from Lough Ree today. Some of the crops may look a little tight, but I was sitting right up beside them on a jetty with just a 50mm.
Have a read of this: https://www.photographyireland.net/viewtopic.php?t=25005
On the birght side, you shot in good light, exposed well and there’s light in the subject’s eye in the first and second last shot. The good light and still water gives you “black water” making this a non-boring environment .. a major problem with swans in photographs. It had potential but required more work from you.
The major problem I have is the angle you shot at. Go into a newsagents and have a look at BBC Wildlife or Outdoor Photography (particularly this one, this month) magazines. They get on eye level with the subject and “include” the subject in the shot.
Thanks Aidan.
I was pretty much as low as I could go though – I was on the jetty, they were in the water beside it. I lay on my back for some of them, but just wanted to be careful. Didn’t really want them to be above me.
Can you explain your last sentence?
I really like the first one, as the swan seems to be staring right into the lens which engages the viewer, the others are more ordinary but still quite appealing.
whyulittle wrote:
Can you explain your last sentence?
Yeah, no prob. The subject isn’t really “in” the shot in a natural way if you shoot it at a sharp angle. You see lots of waterbird shots from above or birds-in-trees from below. The thing is, they don’t work.
If you put yourself at the subjects level then the shot works. Have a look at the better stuff on here .. the photographer is at the same elevation as their subject. Same goes for stuff you’ll see in a photo book or a wildlife magazine. This takes work. That’s the bit that people often don’t get with wildlife photography. You don’t just turn up and shoot. You have to find an environment that works where the subject is, wait for the subject to come close/try to get close, get the light you need, wait for the subject to give you the image that works, compose, meter and then shoot. This takes time. I sat in my hide for many hours over the hols and got nothing. I could have snapped birds sitting up top of a tree but that wouldn’t work.
In the location of your shot, if I couldn’t get the angle I would have waited for it to move further away and used a longer zoom. Otherwise I wouldn’t have taken the shot.
For something like a Swan this is a good time of year. When we get sun, there’s lovely soft light nearly all day long. In Dublin on the Grand Canal you get nice still dark water and you can get close and at the bird’s level with little effort. There’s stacks of them just east of Harolds Cross lately. Down the south east there’s Tacumshane Lake where there’s hundreds of winter migrants but they require some work/patience to get near because they are _wild_ … you also need to be careful about driving there because you risk tearing off your exhaust or tearing open your sump.
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