Itch

Maybe I should visit a doctor, as since a few days, I have been experiencing this strange, itchy feeling in my righthand indexfinger that just does not want to go away. I tried a coolpack, insectbite medicine and even gave the finger a few days absolute rest. Nothing seems to help though. It even gets worse when I am processing backlog images on the computer or visit websites that are about nature photography.

I am slowly starting to get the feeling that I have entered nature photography rehab since I have become a father some 4 weeks ago.

The day Linde was born probably was also the day that the kingfisher chicks fled the nesting pipe. I am curious if the kingfisher pair have started a third brood for the year. Hopefully, this weekend I'll find a spare moment to visit the site and check out the situation (and maybe take a few photographs). If they have started a new brood, activity should be high now. What also keeps my mind busy is how the fox cubs have done since they moved house. Have they survived the bushfire, are they still in the same area, how much have they grown? Questions, questions. In the near future, time for photography will surely be limited, but every now and then I will give way to the addiction. I'll have to, in order to keep me sane!

Common Kingfisher male; Canon 1D Mark III w. 500/4 IS and 1.4x; 1/250s at F6.3 and ISO 800; tripod and camo cloth.

Copycat

Sometime ago, I received an email from a woman who had visited an exhibition by the VNFE, the nature photographers association in my area. The exhibition featured an image of mine, a pan blur of a flock of Greylag Geese. She explained she was an amateur aquarel artist, was impressed by the photograph and wanted to take the challenge of creating an aquarel painting from my photograph. So I sent her a reasonable size print and asked her to let me know when the painting was finished. This week, I got an email from her with attached a photograph of the result. I must say I am very impressed.

Us photographers capture existing things on film (albeit sometimes with a creative twist), painters are the real artists as they create something out of nothing more than a blank canvas. Here's the original photograph for comparison.

And then there were three...

It's been a while since my last post, and for a very good reason. Today one week ago, I got up at 5am to visit the kingfishers again, as I expected the chicks to explore the world outside the nest that day. I was just about to leave, when my wife told me she had had a strange feeling in her stomach for two hours. As she was 39 weeks pregnant, it could well be THE moment, so of course the kingfishers would have to do without me. To keep a long story short (and to keep it a happy story), about 10 hours later Hanneke and I became the proud parents of our beautiful daughter Linde: she too had decided to explore the world outside the nest that day.

Besides the joy of being a new dad to a wonderful baby, I am also very happy with Linde as a willing model for my photography. She keeps relatively still, which will undoubtedly change by the time she becomes aware of the camera. I like to play around with the cheap but powerful 50/1.8 lens for portraits. Depth of Field is very shallow wide open and the results at 1600ISO on the Mark III are perfectly usable. Several Photoshop plugins provide me with edgy results. Very funny to spend the few minutes with that I have left every day after the bulk of household chores are done. Not sure when I'll find the time for 'real' nature photography again, but keep visiting the site and blog, as I will surely be updating every now and then with images and news.

Ah, diaper changing time again, it sure smells like nature here!

Linde; Canon 1D Mark III w. 50/1.8; 1/60s at F2.8 and ISO1600; handheld.

Closer...and closer...

Last year, I tried to photograph the kingfishers with a wide-angle lens. I had the camera mounted on a tripod in the water and sat under a camocloth with the remote in my hand. Unfortunately, the chicks had fledged the day before and 4 (!) of them sat on a branch not far from my position. With the camera in the water, all I could do was smile and enjoy the unique view.

This year, I knew for sure that the chicks were still in the nest. So again I positioned the camera in the water, very close to the favorite perch of the male.


It did not take long before he landed exactly where I wanted. The shutterclicks did not bother him at all. Between visits, I could even rearrange the setup for different results. In the end, I liked this one best, with the male perpendicular to the lens and a good sense of the habitat in the background.

It's all over for this year, hopefully new chances next year. Although I love harsh winters for my own photography, it is literally killing for the kingfisher population. I hope several chicks from this years broods will survive and use the same nesting wall again next spring. 'Till then, my freshwater gems!

Common Kingfisher; Canon 1D Mark III w. 17-40/4 L; 1/30s at F8 and ISO800; Tripod and remote.