Arizona Treks

At one time, wildlife was my favorite photographic subject.  I would spend a lot of time chasing an opportunity to photograph an interesting animal.  I have a few decent photos of animals but I learned that wildlife is not my favorite subject and practice wildlife photography much less often these days.  

The photo above is interesting mostly due to the fact that the gull and the rock are on strong points of the image and in opposite corners.  This was f/11 at 300mm so the DOF is not as great as I would like.  But the composition is good and the execution is reasonable considering the compromises.  I would normally go to f/16 for something like this but in this case there was no time, the camera was at ISO 400 and I was shooting at f/11, this just happened so I was able to quickly capture the scene but had no opportunity to change much.  That is one of the things I did not like about wildlife photography, things happen quickly and you must be ready to react, like being on constant alert.  that takes away from the enjoyment and satisfaction.  Some people like that scenario so I will let them concentrate on wildlife and I will only occasionally participate.

Another for of wildlife photography is birds in flight (BIF).  It is entertaining for me in small doses.  Near water is frequently the best place to practice it because there are more birds and they frequently are a little more predictable.  But I bore with BIF after a few minutes.

Other sea life.  We ventured out onto the jetty at Eureka at low tide and found hundreds of starfish above the water.  That was fun for a while and some of the photos are rather nice.  We were looking for the dolphins and saw them but they were too far away for any photographs.  That is also where we saw the whales, I did get a couple of photos of them but alas, only a small portion of the back.  But it was a great experience anyway.

The beach is an interesting place for wildlife photography and if you live in the desert the animals are different to keep most of us amused for quite some time.