Did You Ever? And Lots More.

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“Sandhill Crane over the Chupaderas” was created with the Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 2/3 stops off the early morning sky: 1/1000 sec. at f/5.6 set manually. When the winds are from the north/northwest in the early morning, a very common occurrence at the two Bosque crane pools, the birds take off into the wind veering slightly away from you and the light. The trick in those conditions is to walk 200-300 yards to the north. Once the birds are in the air for a bit they will begin to head to the northeast to the farm fields. You will be in perfect position to create images of the against and just above the mountains in the background. This is just one of the many tips that you will find in the Bosque Site Guide, the next best thing to being on an IPT. I share my 16 years of experience there with you so that you will know where to be when even on your very first visit. There is a free update coming very soon.

Did You Ever?

Did you ever have a day when everything seemed to go right? The day began with about six hours of work on BIRDS AS ART Bulletin #349. (See below.) A satisfying job well done. Within an hour of sending the Bulletin a very lovely Ginger Creevy called and signed her and her husband up for the last two Galapagos spots. Whew! And yahoo! Next, someone called to register for the SW FLA IPT.

When I am in San Diego I always visit my health and spiritual advisor, Dr. Cliff Oliver. Most of you know that he saved my from killing myself with food. Before we met, I had eaten more than 2/3 of a million Oreo cookies. If you would like to hear the whole amazing story of my return from the abyss to the best health of my life, e-mail me and request the Health Basics File. IAC, Cliff had suggested that I set up an appointment with a young acupuncturist named Melvin Tann. So I did. It was a most revealing 90 minutes. Melvin mentioned that my kidney pulse (or chi or life force or energy) was low. At his suggestion I switched from my beloved pistachio nuts to walnuts. When I got home I remembered that I had purchased a set of musical qigong CDs from master Shen Wu after visiting him in Orlando. One of the five CDs had to do with restoring chi to the kidney. Yesterday I searched for the kidney CD on my nightstand to no avail.

Today I got the huge box of CDs from my closet. Most were in plastic clam shell holders. There must have been four hundred CDs in all in the carton. As I grabbed the first handful of CDs I thought, “I might search this whole box one CD at a time and the one that I am looking for might not even be in it.” Bingo! The very first CD in the pile that I picked up was “A Journey Into Harmony II.” The one that I had marked “kidneys” many years ago…. You gotta love it.

Next I got a call from the folks at the Lands End Motel in Homer, Alaska. It will serve as base of operations for the Bald Eagle IPTs that Robert O’Toole and I are conducting late this winter. At first they wanted $250 a day for 15 days for a conference room. I suggested $50 per day in lieu of the fact that we had accounted for more than 150 room nights. The very nice lady said that she would speak to her manager and see what they could do. (They are already comping us a suite….) She calls back in two minutes and tells me that they will be glad to comp us a second suite at no charge and set it up for our small group programs.

Did you ever have a day when everything seemed to go right? All that’s left now is for the Texans to beat the Eagles on Thursday night football and help out my Giants….

Blake Shaw Photo Expo West Blog Post

Bulletin subscriber Blake Shaw sent me a link to his blog post detailing my recent appearance at Photo Expo West in Del Mar, California, my trip sponsored by Canon USA’s Explorers of Light Program and by Delkin Devices. It is full of very excellent photo tips. (He was quoting me :)) And the two images of me speaking are quite creative. You can check out the images and Blake’s Photo ABCs blog here.

BIRDS AS ART Bulletin #349 is On-line Now

BIRDS AS ART Bulletin #349 is On-line now and–thanks to Peter Kes–you can view it here.

Here are the features:

CANON LIVE LEARNING/BIRDS OF THE EVERGLADES WORKSHOP with ARTHUR MORRIS:
FEB 4-6, 2011
THE EARLY WORD ON BOSQUE
GALAPAGOS 2011
CANON GEAR FOR SALE
GREECE/DALMATIAN PELICANS with ARTHUR MORRIS & ROBERT O’TOOLE
A GUIDE TO PLEASING BLURS
SHOPPER’S GUIDE
IPT UPDATES

Shopper’s Guide

Here is a list of the gear that I used to create the Sandhill Crane image above.

Canon 800mm f/5.L IS lens
Canon EOS-1D Mark IV professional digital camera body

And from the BAA On-line Store:

Gitzo 3530 LS Tripod
Mongoose M3.6 Tripod Head
Double Bubble Level

If you are considering the purchase of a major piece of photographic gear be it a new camera, a long lens, a tripod or a head, or some accessories be sure to check out our complete Shopper’s Guide.