I don’t care if you like birds. I happen to like them but have only begun my quest to better understand them. When people ask if I am a birder I say, “No.” I follow up with “I’m just paying attention for the first time.” I also love how so many of you are now sending me bird-related things. If I can get a few of you paying attention, well, that’s a good thing. The same applies when I write about cycling and you tell me you dug an old ten-speed out of the garage. Whatever, however, and by any means.
As most of you know, I’m a multi-system guy when it comes to photography.
For the past decade, Fuji has been the toy of choice. More recently, I added Nikon to the mix. I believe all modern systems are incredible. Leica, Sony, Nikon, Canon, Fuji, and the list goes on. All of these options work. The basics of photography don’t change from system to system. Light, timing, composition, and most importantly, something to say. This is the part of the conversation where most gear heads fade away. Focusing on the camera capability while ignoring the limitations of the human behind the controls.
My ongoing project deals in part with birds. The book will have thirty three chapters and precisely thirty three images of birds, but the book isn’t a bird book. Far from it. The book is about history, culture, people, place, event, and topography, both human and natural. The bird is the bystander that will simply serve as the chapter heads. But making thirty three bird images, good ones, isn’t easy. Bird photography is a challenge.
I heard someone refer to bird detect autofocus as the “cheat sheet,” to birding success, and I would agree with this statement. What used to take luck and an act of God is now effortless with the baked in capability of something like the Nikon Z8. This is not me shilling Nikon. Fuji has the same option, as do several of the other brands. The feature is a great starting point, and with simple bird images, it really is almost a guarantee of success. However, when it comes to more complex images, this feature really is just a starting point. You still must compose, look for the light and look for peak action moments within the madness that is bird life.
I shot the images you see here over the course of about ten minutes. All within walking distance of my house. Spring migration is in full swing. If you haven’t read in detail about what this means you really should. Astounding doesn’t even begin to describe what is happening. Over the course of the past few weeks, I’ve watched these hummingbirds closely. I know where they are nesting. I know who is the boss, who is the jester and who is the timid male who prefers to watch.
I have two goals.
First, to capture one solid image for the chapter that represents this county. Second, to slowly build a bird photography archive for some future generation that might dig through the rubble of our civilization and wonder what flora and fauna existed during our time. This, of course, assumes that my files won’t be wiped out by an EMP or worse. One, large, crisp, beautiful file at a time. New Mexico has 552 species of birds. Maybe I’ve got fifty under my belt. Maybe.
Out there at the edges of this work lives the future book. I have no desire to create a digital “anything,” from this work. This is about long-term, slow form, documentary work intended to live on the pages of a book. Could be a single copy of a book. I don’t care. Not looking for fame or fortune. The juice for me is being in the field making these images. Learning as I go. Snapping and writing, cataloging, organizing and designing them slowly into spreads and single pages. Balancing the puzzle pieces for maximum impact.
Yes, the camera is incredibly capable, but for me, it’s all about the endgame. This is about project. This is about passion, being challenged, learning new things, and taking the time to make something uniquely mine. The best camera is simply the one that doesn’t get in the way. As always, the most difficult thing is the time required to do this kind of work. Even if I didn’t have a day job, this project would be a minimum of three years. That’s three years working full time on the project. Throw in the day job and now think in terms of a decade. The online photography conversation revolves mostly around photographic equipment. Boring conversation. It’s what we do with it that counts.
For those of you who have not worked in long-term project form, I highly recommend you do. Just start. Come up with a story you want to tell and start telling it. No matter the brand of kit, or pen, or notebook or shoes. Just start. Come back from the first shoot, edit, and then begin to layout the work even if you initially have no intention of printing. This will make you a better photographer. Plain and simple. Yes, it’s challenging. Yes, you will have to focus. No, there is no pat on the back from strangers and bots. But it just might lead you to finding out who you really are. (By the way, I know I can run the denoise feature in Lightroom, and I can a myriad of other things to these files, but wanted to show how good they are right out of the camera.)
Comments 18
Hey Dan, great advice “Just Start”. About a year ago I came to the realization I wanted my photography to mean more to me than just posting on the great void of Instagram or Vero. Mindlessly scrolling through Youtube I discovered you. Then it all clicked that I wanted to create a book if nothing else but for myself and maybe the grandkids will get a kick out of it one day when they are older and can appreciate it. I decided on a project that I already had some images to draw from and now I have purpose when I take trips for the project on what I am going to shoot. Would like to see you do a blog post on the how to’s of editing for print. I had got it in my head that the images were going to be too dark or the colors off due to the difference in a backlit screen and on printed paper. Being nowhere through with the project I went ahead and printed the 24 pages I had, plus one of your blogs or videos not sure you had a good idea to have something so if someone questions what I am doing I have something to hand them.
Thanks and keep up the great work
Bill
Author
Well done Bill. That’s how it begins. It’s easy to lose oneself in YT. I find keeping a book around is a good way to fight that off.
As a former Graphic Design student, typography is a total obsession of mine..and you adding birds to the mix is such a cool idea. Also, if you don’t have a field guide handy, that would also be a suggestion from an avid birder.
I spotted a Killdeer a month ago(never seen one before) and snapped it with my phone because alas I didn’t have my camera with me. They all have such different personalities.
Author
Heck ya. Type is like a language I can muddle through.
“This is about passion, being challenged, learning new things, and taking the time to make something uniquely mine.”
I almost said these exact words out loud to myself this morning when I got the first creeping doubts about my new project idea. Shove it, Inner Voice, I have stuff to make.
Author
Make one small thing on a daily basis.
Lovely images.
I might be slightly insane but I’ve started photographing birds along my local river with an old Canon EOS 7 Elan, a cheap 28-300 Tamron, and a roll of Fuji 400 ISO film.
Author
That sounds perfectly logical to me.
Bird stories? You want bird stories?
Just now, I was sitting on the back porch here in Oakland CA and it’s mockingbird mating season. Lots of boys singing every song in their playlist, searching for ‘the one’.
It’s hotter than normal this afternoon in the mid 80’s. Much to my surprise, a trio landed feet from me. Not sure if they were fighting over a girl, or maybe exploring polyamory, but one flew off immediately, too fast for me to verify it’s sex. (Could have been the girl waiting to see who will be her mate, or she gave up to find another.)
The two males looked up at me after one of them jumped off the other’s back as if to say, ‘what?’ They flew off in different directions before I could switch the iPhone to camera mode and grab a video.
Author
that is so NoCal Tommy! There are no borders, no rules. Birds or humans.
Dan-If anyone says your photography is for the birds, consider it a compliment!
Author
I’ll take it.
I live on the edge of a cliff overlooking a harbo(u)r. There are a ton of trees, and there is one bunch of dead trees that stand much taller than the rest which have been preserved because this is where the hawks bring their young each spring to train to hunt. This is the first year that I haven’t seen them….I fear the worst. But bird observation is generally very good here. For me it’s just with binoculars, not wanting to invest in the glass to make it really work with the camera. But I get it…. just quieting yourself enough to really SEE.
To that end I’ve done all I can to slow down shooting. I won’t go as far as film to slow myself down, and part of this has been to toss out auto-focus. I’ve never been one to exposure or focus bracket, or really auto-anything, so everything now feels really SEEN. Process is a really personal thing. The “zone” is elusive, at least for me.
I love these shots of yours. Focus is really good and getting the structure of the wings without freezing their motion is a feat, especially with so little time to act.
Author
In the now. It sounds easy, but as we all know, it isn’t.
I’ve had Transcendental encounters/interactions with birds for most of my life. More like feathered gurus, guides… maybe even game theory, avian participants. Nature’s genius genus (genera). Most “birders” are lunatics at heart, and for good reason!
Author
So dedicated, so driven, so knowledgable.
Daniel, the last image in the post brought Fukase’s Ravens to mind. That might say more about me than you but I’m sure that you’ll have seen it at some point, even if you have little in common, thankfully. It’s about the most famous bird-based phonebook. Any comment?
Author
Don’t know it. But what I don’t know about could fill a stadium.