Sunday, July 20, 2008

Location, Location, Location - Osprey @ Belle Haven Marina

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So much of what I see and photograph is made possible by location. This spot at the marina, brought to my attention by Kim, is a great example of location at work.

In the second half of the day, the sun gets lower and is to the west (duh) while the action is to the east. This creates a very predictable good setup for light.

Another thing the location has going for it is that the osprey nest is in a fairly high traffic part of the Potomac river. There's a boat launch, and docks right near the nest. This gets the birds more accustomed to people and tolerant of them. Another good example of this is with the Hawks I've photographed at the national zoo, as well as the Black-Crowned Night Herons there too.

From the animal's perspective in all those cases, they see tens or hundreds of people on a given day.

Comparing that to a animal or bird, that might see one or two people a day (or none) the odds of getting a good encounter are much much lower with the isolated subject.

Part of why I wrote the above was to encourage other people to keep venturing out to new and different locations in search of better encounters and photos. Flickr has a been a great resource for me when it comes to discovering locations, most places I go are a result of flickr searches, contacts, etc.

Above cropped for effect, I had the entire bird in frame, and select sharpening was used (ie only the bird part of the photo was sharpened, not the sky). Taken with D300 and 80-400mm VR f/4.5-6.5.

I've been happy with the 80-400mmVR lens, but I want more. Kim has gotten me jealous of her gear, but I don't think I will be happy with a huge lens that requires a tripod. So, I think I might be looking in to the 200-400mm f/4 Nikkor lens. The only person I know on flickr that uses this 200-400mm lens if Michel and his work is amazing, inspires me, etc. If you're not familiar with his photos, start by checking out his girl friend.

Here are some photos and videos from Belle Haven Marina.
Osprey Chick (Finiky's)



Got Fish?  Osprey @ Belle Haven Marina 7/18/2008




Osprey!

Location, Location, Location - Osprey @ Belle Haven Marina

-Jon

Thursday, July 10, 2008

I just heard about the Gettyimage / flickr thing. There was a post on strobist about it, and then a link to probably a better more informed take on it from Photoshelter. (And I read this too - You just have been Flickered (updated)
. This was interesting too, from 2006, strobist's take on photography, stock, etc.

My barely informed opinion on the flick/getty alliance after reading those... Gettyimages is not going to make us all rich. They won't even make a bunch of us rich.

If they were to contact me I'd be flattered I suppose, but would probably not pursue it. I'm planning to setup a site to sell prints, and have started the work on picking the images out from the nearly couple hundred thousand I've taken in almost 3 years.

I've sold a handful of images through flickr (someone emails me in flickr) that were used a couple of different ways (ie not a print for personal use). I've also given away tens if not a couple hundred images to good causes for free (educational or promoting nature or the environment).

That said I submitted a request for a free photoshelter account. I may or may not use it. I know someone that has some images on istock I think, and they make a few bucks from it. I don't think I'd want to give away some of the photos that mean a ton to me for potential sale at a cheap price for commercial use. So, I might just try to shoot specific images for photoshelter, or submit only a certain type of image (ie not my personal favs, etc). If I have a photo that I can sell individual prints for $50 or $100 or more, why would I sell someone the image for 10 bucks so they can sell prints, or use it in an ad or whatever???

There's just no way I'd part with these on the cheap:
Blackwater

Great (Falls) Blue Heron

Blue Ridge Mountains