You can see my mostly still or single flight images from my boat birding trip with Ted here. It was great to be in such a target rich environment with a skilled boater. I also had a very smart (and funny!) companion who was dialing my bird knowledge in Eric Gofreed. Check out Eric’s Flicker feed. Some awesome images there!
Wing positions
I am fascinated by the articulating wing positions that larger waterfowl use to become airborne. If you just watch a bird take flight, it seems to be a different visual experience than when you break the motion into pieces. Here are a couple series to show you what I mean.
Cormorant synchronization
When these birds began their flight, I was amazed that they were in almost perfect sync. Both birds wing positions stayed together until they passed out of sight. Nature is extremely interesting if we take the time to watch!
Processing a sequence
I rolled through a big pile of image captures while tracking this Great Blue Heron. A selection of these eight show various wing positions during flight. All images were processed with the same settings in Adobe Camera RAW. All photos were opened in Photoshop. The first sequence image was processed extending the canvas to 50 inches moving the empty space to the left. Generative fill was used with no prompts to extend the background. Individual captures were targeted using the “Select Subject” tool. It made a fairly good selection of each heron. Selections were cleaned up and finessed using the Lasso Tool. When using the Lasso Tool, holding down the Shift key adds to the selection and the Option/Alt key subtracts from the selection.
Make a selection with the Move Tool using Cmd > Click and drag the section to the master image. Rinse and repeat until all birds are in place. I found that I was still a little short on space. So, I added another four inches to increase Canvas Size once more. A selection made of the new space included a little to extend the background. Content Aware Fill took care of the rest. Photoshop allows us to be creative in telling our stories.
Yours in Creative Photography,
Bob