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Catch Me If You Can
I found this beauty near the National Park Inn where we stayed. I was mesmerized by the bird and forgot to check my shutter speed, so I didn’t realize how little of the afternoon light was filtering through this grove of trees. I was using fill flash to help illuminate the bird’s vibrant blue feathers, but the shutter speed was low enough that you can see a bit of head movement in the bill and feathers. I rather like the effect, the catchlight in the eye is still sharp from the short flash duration, and the rest of the bird was sharp thanks to the image stabilization in the lens.
Part of the reason that I like the slight head movement is that I’ve had a hard time photographing these jays in the wild, they seem to move just out of camera reach before I can get their pictures. So to me, the movement adds a playfulness to the image that won’t be there for most viewers, as if the bird is saying “Catch me if you can …” |