I have not been updating my blog as much as I used to. All kinds of things are keeping me busy, but I did recently purchase a new lens for my camera. I used the new lens to take the bottom two photos on this page; I took the rest with the old kit lens.
The above two photos are from a series of a bit over two-hundred that I took of people jumping into the water at Whatcom Falls Park. It was tough to get the exposures to turn out well, because the sun was shining through the trees, causing some places to be extremely bright and others to be rather dark. Taking the photos was a lot of fun, though it wasn’t until near the end of the shots that I had started to pan well.
This was just a random shot that I took when I was relaxing in the grass. A bird flew overhead and caught my eye, so I followed its path and snapped a shot when it landed.
These last two shots are the ones I took with the new lens.
Ian,
I looked at several of these photographs on Flickr.
There was something about the bird which had just landed on the roof that intrigued me. And I am definitely not fond of birds.
One of my friends, a college freshman who is studying photography, says The Bird needs some cropping and desaturating. But he likes to tell everyone else what to do in all situations so I don’t know whether his criticism is valid.
The large version of the chipmunk photograph is stunning. But just as you are not too sure of singling out those various species, I also am not much on identifying plants and animals.
Robert
Hi Robert,
I’m glad the bird caught your eye as it did mine. Your friend is quite right on both accounts. The picture is a bit over-saturated because I had left the camera set for higher saturation from some shots I did quite a while ago (sharpness was also too high, but I have since fixed both settings on the camera). It does need to be cropped a bit closer, but the quality leaves something to be desired. The lens I took this with is very soft and has a narrow aperture, so the photos can be a bit lacking. Still, it was a free lens that I’m am quite grateful to have.
I tried to figure out if it was a chipmunk for sure or not, but I ended up just being more confused by looking at the huge variety of animals labeled as chipmunks, squirrels, and other similar creatures.
Thanks for the comments!