With fall migration well underway, we've been getting some seasonal visitors to the area. In this photo, a flock of white-faced ibis forage for frogs and other edibles at northern Arizona's Grass Flat Tank.
Sept. 10, 2023
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Fantastic! Love the composition and the wonderful gradient in the background. Also the shapes are very elegant.
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Nice shot. Did you, by any chance, get a slightly wider angle shot? Would be interesting to see them in relation to their environment
Tim
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Thank you. The biggest challenge was that these birds were moving quickly through the area. They're not stealthy patient hunters like herons. They're constantly moving, probing the mud and shallows, and rarely staying in one place for long.
It was a fun challenge to try to make a photo or two that brought some order to the chaos of this flock.
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There's one photo I may share that was made a greater distance and shows the flock amidst the tall grass.
This photo was made later in the morning when they were passing much closer to my hide. It was something of a tweener situation with the birds being too near to make full body shots except at 200-300mm and the group being large enough in number that the full body shots were too disorganized.
I've found a large herd or flock to be among the most challenging subjects to photograph. All photos need a subject and, unless there's a member of the herd/flock doing something or positioning itself to stand out, photos of a large number of animals in the frame tend to look disorganized.
It's a fun challenge and, while the birds were bustling about some 10-15 feet from me, I was mindful that this is a really good op. Once I settled into a focal length that balanced isolation with capturing some of the activity in the immediate area, I kept working it. I like the result đ
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Weird. I thought it would look more like this:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrLGZSQ0ulU&t=560s
đ
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Get thee to a punnery đ
