What’s Up?
Patrick Sparkman took a few hours off from work this morning to join Bryan Holliday and me at the cliffs in La Jolla. After a slow start we smoked em. I have a private client tomorrow morning; we will be targeting the pelicans–many still in spectacular breeding plumage–Brandt’s Cormorant, and Western and California Gulls.
The Streak
Today’s blog post marks 132 days in a row with a new educational blog post. As always–and folks have been doing a great job recently–please remember to use our B&H links for your major gear purchases. For best results use one of our many product-specific links; after clicking on one of those you can continue shopping with all subsequent purchases invisibly tracked to BAA. Your doing so is always greatly appreciated. Please remember: web orders only. Please remember that if you are shopping for items that we carry in the BAA Online Store (as noted in red at the close of this post below) that we would appreciate your business 🙂
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“That’s what my wife looks like when she wakes up in the morning” |
The Gallery Walk
As noted here previously, on Sunday past, Patrick and Robin Sparkman, Bryan Holliday, David Salem and his friend Glenn Conlan, and Brian Jones and his friend Norm Brown joined me at The Nat (The San Diego Natural History Museum) for a gallery walk. My exhibit, BIRDS AS ART, the Avian Photography of Arthur Morris hangs until mid-April. Even those who had been to the show before were amazed by the beauty of the venue, the Abe Ordover Gallery. Everyone liked the images too, and marveled at the incredible printing job by Fine Print Imaging of Fort Collins, CO.
David Salem is no slouch as a photographer; he is the first two time winner of BirdPhotographer.Net’s Image of the Year (IOTY) and the first to be so honored in consecutive years. You can see Dave’s spectacular 2015 winning image and the other category winners here. And you can see the 2014 winners here. I will be featuring the 2015 winners in a blog post here soon. You can learn more about BPN or join here. In any case, David’s effusive and insightful comments on my work were greatly appreciated. And they meant a ton coming from such a talented, skilled, and hard-working photographer.
Locals, and those who will be visiting San Diego in the next few weeks, can learn more about the SDNHM gallery exhibition here. It runs until April 25th.
The gentleman pictured in today’s lead image kindly stopped to chat with the group when he learned that I was the photographer. Pointing to the Great Egret begging image pictured in Bryan Holliday’s fine cell phone image above, he cracked everyone up by saying, “That’s what my wife looks like when she wakes up in the morning.” And to think that his wife was standing right there!
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birds as art: The Avian Photography of Arthur Morris/The Top 100
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birds as art: The Avian Photography of Arthur Morris/The Top 100
If you missed the announcement of the new e-book click here for complete info that includes details on getting a signed copy.
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Wood Stork images collageWhich are your favorites? See mine below. |
Are Wood Storks Too Ugly to Photograph?
At a recent blog post Dave Adler commented:
All of your stuff is so consistently amazing that I thought I’d just ask whether you have ever published (or even taken) an image of a Wood Stork. The reason I’m asking is we were in Wakodahatchee (DelRay, Florida) and disappointed to find that practically the whole place has been taken over by these, well, less than impressive birds. Just curious if you have any comments, and thanks.
Good friend and multiple IPT veteran Bill Lloyd (who is headed to Namibia with us in a bit) responded:
Hmmm… Wood Storks and spoonbills are on my bucket list. The storks have amazing faces!
And then I wrote, I have published many Wood Stork images both in print and here on the blog. Those include many beautiful ones and many close-ups of their yes, amazing faces. Try doing a search for “Wood Stork” in the little white search box on the upper right of each blog post page. You should find a few good ones. LMK what you think. 🙂 a
To which I add here: To me, Wood Storks are quite impressive. And yes, they are ugly, but they are quite beautiful at the same time. If you can find one in a nice setting or get really close making some wonderful images of them is a snap. The textures and patterns on their faces are incredible. They breed every year at Gatorland in Kissimmee, FL. My very favorite image in the collage above in the tight adult head portrait from Anhinga Trail, the left-most one in the bottom row, the one with the golden tones. But there are several that I really like a lot especially some of the chicks and the head portrait of a young Wood Stork, bottom row, third from the end.
So what’s the lesson?
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Typos
In all blog posts and Bulletins, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors. Just be right 🙂
Lower right hand corner.
I should have known; if anyone could get a truly impressive image of these creatures it’d be you. I guess I’ll head back to Wakodahatchee where the’re all over the place.
And thanks! lesson learned.
Dave
Good plan Dave. Never look a gift-stork in the mouth! a
My favorite is the bottom right adult with juvenile, but all the images are beautiful. I tend to prefer tight shots of birds and other animals because I love seeing their eyes. One of my absolute favorites is the California Condor – they are also beautiful!
BTW, I like how it seems the Cattle Egret’s (at least I think that’s what it is), feathers seems to be popping out of the gentleman’s head, looking like its his hair. Doug
Yes, the Cattle Egret provided the supplemental toupee 🙂 a
My favorite is row 2, #4. I love the little top-knot on its head. Wish I could see that one bigger.
I love Wood Storks. I always felt if there was one bird that was meant for close ups, this is the one. I just love the textures of the face and neck. Love their wings too. I’ve always called them ‘angel wings’ due to their size.
Doug