Every Picture Tells a Story.

Well,,, in my case every picture tells a story of gross incompetence, and this has been highlighted in the last couple of weeks by my abysmal shots of birds. I've been forgetting the lessons that i learned long ago, and my togging has shown it. Lessons like,,,, 'the sun should be at your back', especially in winter.  My first howler is this shot of a Meadow Pipit. Bad idea to take shots of birds to the east, in the morning, or at noon. This is the result,,,, dark on one side, and blown on the other. I know you can pull shots like this out in Photoshop, but it always has grain and moire consequences. In short,,, you gotta get it right 'in camera'.

My next mistake is one i fall for again, and again,,, and that is,,, 'subject too small in the frame'. In other words ,,, i'm not close enough to the subject. I don't care what lens you have,,,  getting close is all important. A lot of toggers i know seem to think that a long lens lets you off of getting closer,,, not the case. No lens can beat getting closer. I was too far away from this Redstart on Portland at the weekend.

Turnstones are seemingly easy subjects for the wildlife togger,they are so fearless and trusting birds, and look great in bright sunlight. This said,,, my shots of them in the dark weed around Portland harbour were flawed. The bright sun, and the dark weed conspired against me to make my shots look like 'flash' photography. Note the dark borders around the bird.

On the same day here were a lot of Rock Pipits on the beach, and i always struggle to get nice shots of these. However on this occasion i did manage fairly well. Note the differences between 'rocks' and 'meadows' .

Of course i was glad to have made fewer mistakes when recently encountering a Great Northern Diver in Portland Harbour, but that's not to say i was completely satisfied with my efforts.

Thanks for looking at my BLOG, and i hope you make your fair share of togging mistakes as well. Whatever,,,, its a great hobby,,,,, don't you think?

Sad Days

Adie's funeral made me glaze over a bit today, tragic when a person so young and interested in the world goes like that. My friends were all there, laughing, and trying to come to grips with it. I was reminded by a guy that likes to dress up as Suggs, that the BLOG was lagging behind, and it has,,, mostly because of the inclement weather.
    Moreton is a village close to my heart, i love the place. When my mum was a little girl, she lived on 'The Street', and went to school in the building that is now a tea room. My mum, now in her late eighties is pictured on the wall of the tea rooms as a very young schoolgirl, and i have pictures of my mum and her sister before they were teens playing by the old post office at the end of 'The Street'. That's the street with all the thatched cottages.
    In later times i used to visit Moreton in search of fungi, and found that numerous species grow around the village.... Recently,,, me and Chris,,,, and the man that likes to dress like Suggs visited the village to photograph fungi, and i managed to grab some shots of the village hall. At last this old building is being replaced by a more modern one. I don't know when the old one was built, but it has lasted for most of my lifetime, and will soon be gone,,, i think.

Recently,,, the man that dresses like Suggs took me and Dennis on a togging day out. We ended up at a place on the coast, where i grabbed a shot of this cake.

Most of my immediate companions have recently been trying to get a decent picture of a kingfisher from the north hide at Radipole, where a new scrape has been created. The perches are just that little bit too far away, and our efforts have been mostly in vain. My policy has been not to crop too tightly and try to make a 'picture' of it. Usually,,, all i see of a Kingfisher is a 'blue flash', so a bit of a treat to capture one,,, even at this distance.

Thanks for reading this blog entry, and thanks to my friends for some great days out togging.