Category Archives: Photography
A specially awesome day
I always take my camera to the beach and today was a specially awesome day with the camera. We went early, to escape the heat, more than anything. As you can see, there was a shower around.
We said ‘good morning’ to the osprey looking down at us from his favourite perch
and waved to the Brahmani Kite high up in the pine tree.
Then we were treated to the spectacle of an osprey hunting. It came in low over shallow water. Dived so deep it disappeared, then came back up again, fighting for the sky. I say ‘fighting’ – I think they do it pretty easily with those huge wings. The fish caught securely in its talons, it headed back up the beach to find a place to eat.
If you’d like to see more of my eagle pictures, you might like ‘When the universe tugs at your lead’ or ‘photographing Brahmani kites’.
Always check your battery BEFORE you go out
A walk down the beach is about my favourite form of exercise, one I’m privileged to be able to indulge regularly. These days, I always have my camera by my side, ready for a photo opportunity. But this day was… well, I have to say it, ordinary. Grey and dull, with small waves chopping up the surface. The wildlife seemed to have stayed in bed, even the seagulls and terns which regularly patrol the shallows. The thing is, though, you never can tell what may arise. Many’s the day when I thought ho hum – and then something magical occurred.
Like this.
On the way back, I spotted one of my regular photographic subjects, a Brahmani kite, perched in a conifer. There he is at left. It was a different environment from their usual haunts and these majestic birds are always worth a photo, so I approached, camera ready. I took two shots, then Pete called out “look behind you” at the same time that I heard whistles from the trees beside me. The kites had a nest and the second parent bird was bringing in a fish to the nestling, a few handspans above my head. Oh, wow. I spun around, firing shots. One, two, three… bloody hell. The camera refused to work! The second bird took off, joining its mate as they circled down to the (invisible) nest. Bugger bugger bugger. The camera’s battery was flat. (Insert a string of profanities of your choice)
Oh well. It was a joy to behold and I got a few nice photos out of it. And I knew where the nest was.
Birds grow very quickly and this young Brahmani kite was no exception. On our next visit, two days later, we saw him launch from the nest, chased by an irate blue-faced honeyeater. The parent bird had landed on rocks exposed at low tide and waited for the youngster to make its way out there.
As you can see, the young bird’s plumage is very different to the elegant mature bird – but it would have been camouflaged in the nest.
And the moral of this story is… patience is a virtue. And make sure your battery’s charged before you go out.
Leap for your life
I was down on the spit at the creek one morning earlier in the year, waiting for dawn as the tide came in. I noticed fish jumping, no doubt escaping the jaws of a predator and took my chance to see if I could get a shot, albeit at some distance. The result is at left, a little fishy jumping for its very life into an atmosphere which would kill it if it stayed too long.
A bit like us going the other way, I suppose, jumping from a burning boat into a freezing sea. What a choice. Hurl yourself into the unknown and hope for the best or stay and face a more certain death.
A while later, while walking on the beach in broad daylight, I noticed a school of tiddlers trying to escape an unseen marauder and I tried my luck again.
This time, the subjects were closer and I was able to get some better shots. How? I was lucky, of course. I couldn’t hope to press the button when I first saw a fish rise into the air because by the time the shutter clicked they’d be gone, but quite a few were jumping in the same vicinity. Using sports mode, I took a succession of shots in the same area. I ended up with a lot of pictures of the sea. But some captured that split second while the fish was out of water. It felt very special.
Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
None of the above. And it isn’t a UFO, either.
I took this photo an hour or two after sunrise. The sun is quite a way to the left of this image. What’s happened is that sunlight has been reflected and refracted within the ice crystals of the high level cirrus cloud, producing a blindingly white object with a halo of colour.
No wonder primitive people were superstitious.
Feel free to copy – provided you recognise my copyright and attribute the photo to me.
Ducking around
Our swimming pool attracts all sorts of critters and I suppose the most obvious one would be ducks. This pair landed in the water one day last year and started a bobbing courtship dance.
Eventually the mating took place. She looks a bit panicked but I’m not surprised. And then we had the ducky equivalent of a post-coital cigarette. The feathers under the wings are white, but they’ve reflected the colour of the pool liner.
I quite like ducks (they’re Pacific Black Ducks, BTW) but we don’t encourage them because they poop in the pool a lot. (Even so, I think they pop by just after sunrise, have a quick dip and then push off again before we get up. I have found… evidence, you see.)
Bathing in danger
We have a backyard swimming pool and we’re not the only ones who enjoy a dip on a warm summer’s day. Now bear in mind we have a quite large bird bath set up right next to the pool and we keep it clean and filled. But some of our avian mates seem to prefer to walk on the wild side. Particularly the Noisy Miner Birds (that’s one on the left). So (of course) I wanted pictures. It’s a dangerous, dangerous business. If these birds get too wet – they’ll drown.
So here we go.
The bird has hit the water, gone in far enough to get wet and now he’s working on getting out. 
Here he goes, he’s free, beating up to get into a tree to preen.
They don’t always make it. Sometimes they’re lucky and we’re there to rescue them.
This little guy recovered fully – although it took quite a while.
With the rain comes the rainbow birds
We’ve had a lot of unseasonal rain lately, causing a change in our bird visitors. Every garden has its locals and our’s is no different. We have a colony of noisy miner birds, a bunch of butcher birds that come over regularly for pieces of bacon rind, a few pee wees, crested pigeons and turtle doves, all on the scrounge for bits of bread or fruit. Sometimes (maybe once every ten days or so) we’re visited by rainbow lorikeets, who like a piece of left over bread. There’s one couple (they usually come in pairs) that seem to be regulars. We can tell by their behaviour, not appearance. They’re not afraid of us and they see off any intruders of their own kind as if our yard is their territory.
When it rains, the lorikeets come in numbers. I guess it’s harder to find nectar and seeds when the water is trickling down between your feathers. And I expect they get cold, too.
So… when it rains we have scenes like this.
They become quite aggressive. After all, free food is a scarce commodity.
Yesterday, I decided to test how trusting the birds really were. And here’s your answer. I offered my piece of bread to the pair I thought were our regulars, they accepted, then everybody came to join in. Wild birds all, just some of the thousands upon thousands around the town. It was a blast. And a privilege.
‘No photography’ – just another scam
I arrived at Trinity College Dublin with a spring in my step, my trusty camera slung over my shoulder. I’d come to see the famous old library, known as the Long Room and Trinity’s most valuable exhibit, the Book of Kells. Dating back to the Ninth Century, the book is a copy of the Gospels, hand-written in Latin and beautifully illustrated. We paid for our tickets and entered the exhibition room, where the first thing I saw was the ‘no photography’ sign. Sure, I was disappointed but I understood. I guess. Flash photography can cause damage over time. Makes sense, really. Sunlight can fade your curtains, flash is much more intense albeit for a brief instant – but thousands of flashes a week adds up to a LOT of radiation. I wasn’t too sure why I couldn’t take pictures of the posters they used to explain the book, though. The exhibition showed the history of the manuscript and how those ancient monks had made the velum from calf’s hide, how they made the quills from goose feathers, how they made the ink and lots of fascinating stuff, analysing the document itself. For instance, four different people’s hands can be discerned in the writing and illumination.
The Book itself is kept in a separate gallery, in a glass case and in low light. I gazed in wonder at the beauty of the document. The detail is incredible and comparing the volume with much later (albeit still old) books shows how exquisite this older workmanship really is.
Ah well, no photos. But at least I’d be able to take photos in the Long Room.
No. No photography. Let’s be clear here. There are a number of display cases down the centre of the old library filled with old books dating back, in most cases, to the seventeenth century and later. But apart from that, it’s a room full of bookshelves filled with old, bound, books. No photography? Really? I might, at a pinch, agree that flash photography could be forbidden for the sake of the books in the display cabinets, but panorama shots of the interior, flash off?
I’m not singling out the Trinity Library, this was, if you like, the fabled straw on the camel’s back. I didn’t notice an explanation of the no cameras policy during my visit, but this is what the College website has to say. http://www.tcd.ie/Library/bookofkells/film-photography/ Note they don’t actually explain their reasons. This site does a better job of telling people why. http://www.artgalleryofnovascotia.ca/en/AGNS_Halifax/about_us/collection/photography.aspx
But (sorry) I’m not convinced. We visited Catherine’s Palace and the Hermitage last year. There were no restrictions on photography in Catherine’s Palace and the Hermitage charged a fee for using a camera. Within the museum visitors were asked to not use flash when taking pictures of the oldest, most valuable paintings. The Amsterdam Museum whose collection has many works from the Dutch Golden Age, including Rembrandt, has no restriction on photography.
The no photo rule isn’t restricted to art galleries and museums, though. Visitors to St Paul’s in London are not permitted to use their cameras. Yet I shot away to my heart’s content in Winchester Cathedral and the York Minster, to mention just a couple.
Call me a cynic, put I say the no photography rule is just another way of stinging the tourist for a bit more money. I can just imagine the accountant tapping his nose. “If we don’t let them take their own pictures, they’ll have to buy our postcards and other literature.”
Well, let me tell you, I bought a book about the Book of Kells which explains the history and the process of creating the manuscript. In fact, whole pages of that book were used in the exhibition I wasn’t allowed to photograph. (Hmmm) I didn’t buy any postcards. Not a chance. I didn’t go into St Paul’s but I bought a book about the Hermitage and its collections.
Some of you might say I’m cutting off my nose to spite my face. I say that non-flash photography hurts nothing – unless you think it traps a soul. Words like ‘greed’ spring to mind. It seems to be a growing trend. In the Lakes District and down around the south coast of England they’ve installed ‘pay and display’ ticket machines in lay-bys at the side of the road. Pay to look at the view and stay long enough to take a picture.
Here endeth the rant. Please tell me what you think.
The case of the curious cockatoo
Cockatoos are very smart birds – very smart animals. One of my favourites is the sulphur-crested cockatoo, a big white bird with a big loud squawk and a big powerful beak that thinks nothing of chewing through an unopened pine cone. They’re great fliers, acrobatic show-offs and I’m sure they have a sense of humour, as well as an intelligent, curious streak.
Back when we lived in Victoria our property was beside a state forest where an enormous colony of sulphur cresteds lived. They would do an early morning warm-up wheeling overhead in noisy flocks before they started off for the day’s foraging and they’d do the same in the evening, gossiping together and enjoying the last of the sunlight before settling down for the night. They are the Australian bush’s pruners. They don’t seem to be able to sit on a branch without snipping a piece off and they’ll happily chew on any sort of wooden structure – verandas, window sills, fences.
They also live to a ripe old age. We’re talking fifty or more years here, so they’re a pet to hand on to your children. This is one of the reasons I HATE to see them in cages.
There are sulphur cresteds here in Queensland, too and I’m often outside with the camera, trying to get that wonderful photo of one flying by. If they see me, they’ll 
watch me as they go past, turning their heads to look at the camera – just like that one in the picture up there. One of my neighbours has a palm tree putting up a new frond. They grow like a spike before they unfurl and this has become a favourite perch for a lot of the parrots. Notice how they’ve bent the top of the spike to form a seat. Because the tree is a fair way away, it’s not the best picture in the world. Again, see the bird is looking directly at me.
A few moments after I’d gone inside I heard a very loud squawk, then another one. I grabbed the camera, hoping a bird was flying by and I could get that rare action shot. But no. We have palm trees, too. A cockatoo had perched on the leading spike not ten meters from my back door. He had no reason, just curiosity and I will swear to my dying day that he called me out. Once he saw me, the squawking stopped. He swayed up there in the breeze for a few moments, then flew away to join his mates.
Start of a new day
Do you ever get that ‘now what’ feeling? Where something is finished and you’re left empty, casing around for something else to do? It’s a bit how I feel at the moment, one project set free and now awaiting its fate, another teetering on the brink. I’ll start when I’m ready, when I feel less drained.
Until then I can console myself with the camera. Dawn is such a wondrous time, when the darkness gives way to the light and the waters blaze with brightness. I’m not often there to see it, but I was this time.
