Backlit Leaves

It seems like quite a bit of time has passed since the colorful autumn foliage drifted to the ground but going through my archives I found this one touch of color that I had yet to process.  I made the image one foggy November morning.  The combination of fog, wet leaves and backlight caught my attention as I was driving along a dirt road.  I tried a few different compositions with this one being my favorite.  I hope you like it too.

Too Much Depth of Field

400mm f5.6, 5.5m distance

Try as I might I haven't been able to capture a satisfactory shot of a blue jay yet this year.  It's not that there is a lack of bird for at times more than a dozen jays will swarm the feeding area.  Rather the problem is their wariness.  Seldom will they perch for more than a split second unless they are in or near cover when I am positioned close enough to the feeding area to capture an acceptable image.  When I snapped this image the bird was close enough to the camera but too close to cover. 

It is a good sharp image of the bird but the busy background is too distracting.  While reviewing my shots from the day I thought for a moment about hitting the delete button and then decided to post about those times when having too much DOF ruins the shot.

 

Beef

Born on our family farm, castrated during his first day of life, he spent his entire life grazing the pastures with the brood cow herd. Normally our calves are kept until they are 500-600lbs and then sold as feeder calves to be finished out for beef, but this fine looking fellow was chosen two years ago to stay. He had been chosen while still a young calf to provide beef for our family.

He never had to endure the trauma of being trucked to the livestock auction, chased through the sale ring, herded onto a truck, and then dumped into a crowded feedlot where he would barely have room to move. He never had medicated feed, hormone implants, or a steady diet of corn to make him grow faster than he would naturally. And he was never rounded up and trucked to a slaughter plant where he would be forced in line awaiting his turn to be killed. Instead this morning he was pasturing in the same fields he had known all of his life when suddenly his life ended.

Millions of people every day dine on a steak or wolf down a burger without giving a moment's thought that an animal had lost it's life in order for them to have that meal. But when you are around them from the time they are born right up until you carefully aim the shot that strikes their forehead you do think about such things.

It was with sadness that I aimed the rifle. Knowing that this animal had lived a much better, more tranquil life than most cattle slaughtered in the US helped to lessen the sadness. 

There is no Substitute for getting Close

Tufted Titmouse - 7 feet

Eastern Gray Squirrel - 19 feet



Nibbling

Nibbling on a frost covered twig a whitetail buck fawn shows off his tiny antler.

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Pennsylvania Antler Restrictions: My Opinion

When this Pennsylvania firearms deer season draws to a close Saturday we will have ten years of antler restrictions behind us.

Prior to the 2002 season Pa regulations required a buck to carry either a 3" minimum length spike or two points on one side to be a legal antlered deer.  Starting with the 2002 season to be legal; a buck had to carry at least 3 points an inch or more in length on one side and some regions required at least 4.  This year after much complaining from hunters in the 4 point region as to the difficulty in determining whether a buck with three points on top also had the required brow tine the PGC changed the 4 point region to requiring 3 points on top; brow tines do not count.

At the same time the antler restrictions were instituted antlerless rifle deer season, which had previously been the Monday through Wednesday following buck season, became concurrent with the two weeks of buck season.  Since then due to hunter complaints about lack of deer much of the state is now buck only the first five days followed by seven days of concurrent antlered and antlerless hunting.

Legal buck prior to 2002

 Prior to 2002 1 1/2 year old buck made up 85% of the buck harvest.  Leaving only 15% of the bucks to have a chance to become 2 1/2 years old.  At 1 1/2 bucks are simply too young to grow nice antlers.  Spikes were so common that it was the running joke that they were Pennsylvania 11 pointers.  If I remember correctly studies were reporting that the adult buck/doe ratio was somewhere around 14 does for each buck following the hunting season. 

 Another legal buck prior to 2002

Willard and I both became interested in our local whitetails at an early age and have hunted, watched, and photographed them extensivily over the past forty plus years.  Prior to 2002 we would have refered to the buck pictured in the first photo as a big buck for our area and indeed he may have been the biggest buck we spotted during the course of the year.  Today our standards have changed.  Now I would refer to him as a little eight pointer as bucks of his size are quite common.

After nine years of antler restriction it takes a buck like this to really get my attention

Pennsylvaina was never known for big bucks.  Our deer herd was managed for quanitity and quanitity only.  With 750,00 to 1,000,000 hunters in the woods a buck did not have much of a chance to live to adulthood.  Our problem has never been geneticts, it has always been age.  No buck can grow impressive antlers at 1 1/2 years of age.  2 1/2 year olds can grow some nice antlers but they simply cannot be big.  Its very simple, it takes time for a buck to grow.  Our current antler restrictions are designed to protect yearlings and is producing a good crop of nice bucks each year.    

I have listened to many hunters discuss antler restriction and surfed message boards.  What I find is that some hunters swear by them while others swear at them however, surveys of hunters finds that support for antler restrictions is very high.  Personally I would never want to go back to the old way.  If change were to be made I would like to see the entire state changed to 3 points on top however the way it is now suits me just fine!

Side Light: Female Cardinal

A cold frosty morning at the feeders was a perfect time to work with low-angle side light.  Shortly after sun rise a female cardinal utilized a number of perches to show off here beautiful muted colors.

Here the light passes through her translucent legs and bill making them glow as if lit from within.

Don't get stuck in the rut of always shooting with frontal light and miss some of the best shots of the day.

Whitetail Humor

Shooting the rut isn't always serious business.  I was quick to click the shutter when this buck peered out from behind a tree.  Did he think that he was hid? Or was he practicing for the coming deer season?

When a buck began closing in on the doe he was chasing I focused the camera on her to capture the interaction between the animals.  I had to chuckle when his antlers lined up with her head, nearly looking as if she was wearing the headgear in reverse.

And when a grazing fawn found a leaf firmly attached to its nose it tossed its head violently.  I was too late focusing on the fawn to capture its frantic action in its failed attempt to dislodge the leaf, however I was able to make this capture moments before she dropped her head and wiped the leaf away with her hoof.

Capturing the Feeder Critters

During this first week of Pa firearms deer season I spent quite a bit of morning and evening time at the bird feeders.  It's pretty easy to take pictures of feeder birds so instead I have been concentrating on making close-up photographs in dramatic light as you seen with the male cardinal in my last post.

Here a Tufted Titmouse poses nicely in the warm evening sunlight.  The background was heavily shadowed.  Since a camera cannot record the light range seen by the human eye, exposing the bird properly rendered the shadows as black, just the combination I was looking for.

The early morning sun coming from in front of the squirrel creates an interesting play of light and shadow across this image.  The combination of highlights and shadows add depth to the image that would not be present if the sun were in the traditional over the shoulder position. 

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Shooting the Feeders

Wildlife photography can be a hit-or-miss affair but snuggling up to a bird feeder tilts the odds in the photographer's favor. To capture this series of photographs I needed to be close so I set up my Ameristep Outhouse blind this morning ten feet away from the primary feeder.  This gave the birds a few hours to become comfortable with it before the afternoon shoot.  Once the sun had dropped a to a suitable angle it was time to enter the blind and wait for the shots to materialize.  The low-angle light illuminating this cardinal against a deeply shaded background made for a dramatic image.

 My goal is to always capture the birds in their natural surroundings.  To facilitate this our feeders are constructed from natural tree trunks with brush and weeds to provide cover and perches.  There is nothing wrong with shooting birds on man-made feeders; it's just not my style.

This cardinal paused while hopping from branch to branch through a dead poke weed as he approached the feeder.  The earthy browns contrasting with the cardinals brilliant reds, black face mask and shadows playing across his body made a striking image.

With so many perches for the birds to chose from lighting angles and backgrounds vary a great deal depending upon which perch the bird chooses.  With a rather shallow depth of field the distant woodland become a pleasing soft brown background.

For a productive session of wildlife photography setting up close to a busy bird feeder is a nearly sure-fire recipe for an action-packed outing.  And if you pay attention to details the resulting images may become some of your all-time favorites.