Wood Pigeon & Collared Dove Photographs

Another frequent set of visitors to my garden in Brighton are wood pigeons and collared doves, and let me start by saying that they are a whole lot easier to photograph than the smaller birds that are so quick you can easily miss a shot. Sometimes these birds tolerate each other and feed on the ground, usually under the two bird feeders I have hanging from trees in the garden, and when they aren't fighting the other away they just get on with feeding. On this occasion they were ignoring one another and as you can see they weren't in the slightest bit bothered by the other and got very close. I snapped these two crossing each others path as they picked up dropped pieces of sunflower seeds from the small birds that use the feeder over head, the collared dove in the front is in focus with the larger wood pigeon just behind him.

As the sun continued to go down the wood pigeon kept coming back and forth from the garden looking for more food, so waiting very still at the back of the house I took this shot as he turned towards me and with the long shadows and the sunlight bringing out the rich colour of his neck and breast I'm glad I stuck around. This is one of my favourite bird photographs so far, a bit of luck capturing the bird in this stance with the perfect sunlight right across the image, and a lot of perseverance and patience. I took this using a 70-300mm lens set to 300mm, f5.6, handheld and on a 400ISO colour negative film.

Sunlit Leaves & Flowers Photographed

Whilst I was waiting patiently for some birds to appear in my garden for me to photograph, I noticed the light filtering through the leaves of the tree to my right creating a dappled effect on it's delicate white flowers, so seeing as though our flying friends weren't cooperating I turned my lens to photograph this tree and its flowers instead. Using a shallow depth of field and focusing on the flowers through the leaves in the foreground has giving a soft foreground of shape and colour whilst enhancing the bright white sunlit flowers behind. Had I used a smaller aperture and allowed the foreground to be in sharp focus too, it would have caused the image to be confusing and over cluttered with no real focal point. I like the 'jungle' feel of this shot, vivid greens and the overgrown enclosed atmosphere.

Blackbird Catches Me By Surprise

This was one of those 'quick or you'll miss it' moments when suddenly out the corner of my eye I noticed some movement, I turned slowly to see this male blackbird perched very close to me on the top of this branch. Carefully I raised my camera and managed to get just two or three shots before he flew off, here's the best of the bunch.

Shot using aperture priority mode, f2.8, hand held camera with 100-400mm lens.

Unusual Viewpoint

Those of you who live in the UK will know that we haven't had the best summer for sunshine and warmth, however, on those days that we were fortunate enough to enjoy some sun, and inevitably a sunset, were well worth taking a look at. Down in my neck of the woods, Brighton, East Sussex, the sunsets can be spectacular and when the sun gets really low in the sky the light it produces creates long shadows and can transform mundane things we see everyday into a great photographic opportunity. Take these two shots for example, a beautiful rose bush
just outside the window with loads of pink flowers on it, back lit by the sunlight and casting a shadow on the net curtain along with the criss-cross shapes of the window frame. With the warm tone of the light and the unusual viewpoint of looking out of the window through the curtain, this window and what lies just outside it have suddenly become more interesting and worth photographing. Sometimes you just have to grab your camera when you see something that catches your eye, that's what I did here and have ended up with a couple of shots that I would have otherwise missed.

Determined Magpie

Ever since I put bird feeders out it has attracted a variety of birds, mostly small breeds that can actually perch on them and feed without any problems, however, the magpies and squirrels are very determined despite the fact they cannot get to the seed very easily. Take this very determined magpie for example, I had been photographing small birds such as the chaffinch and greenfinch when I noticed them all quickly fly off. I heard the magpies harsh throaty song just as it landed on the fence close to the feeder furthest from the house, then without hesitation he took off and flew straight for the feeder. Fortunately I had my camera on a tripod standing next to me in the room so I grabbed it and snapped away. As you can see the magpie did it and after not much practice, he would fly towards it, tilt up and then grab the perches on either side whilst still flapping his wings to steady himself and then use his relatively long beak to grab the seeds. This amazed me really as I had seen a pigeon attempt the same with no success at all, in fact it was fairly amusing watching him try, unfortunately I didn't capture this on camera and haven't seen any pigeons try again since. I was lucky that I had left my camera set up as this really was a case of right place right time, rather than the patient sitting and waiting for the birds to appear.

Photographing Foxglove

Having spent a long while sitting patiently and waiting for the birds to fly down into the path of my lens, I had had time to scope out the rest of the garden for other photographic opportunities as well as alternative positions to photograph the birds from. Anyway, this Foxglove had been growing next to my conservatory all through the summer getting taller and taller so that eventually it could see over the top to reach the sunlight it was obviously craving. So I took my camera to it and shot it against the giant Yucca that is growing a couple of meters behind it, though keeping it blurred and the foxglove sharp so that it's bright pink flowers stand out.

Bird Photography - First Attempt

I have recently taken the decision to explore wildlife photography, and in particular, bird photography. It's an area that I have little experience in but have become keen to progress towards and having just hung up two bird feeders in my garden I soon discovered that I could attract plenty of common garden birds down. As a starting point I thought that this would be a good way to get to grips with the ins and outs of capturing these fascinating, yet very fast and sometimes elusive creatures. So I got myself a relatively fast colour film, 400 ISO, took my camera and 70-300mm zoom lens and had a go!

As you can see the results are mixed, however, not bad for a first attempt. These are simple shots that I took through a window on a moderately bright day, and when I started I figured that it would be more beneficial for me to start off not too worried about the composition and framing, but to allow myself time to test out different exposures and camera settings. I wanted to blur the background and retain focus on the birds themselves so I opted for a large aperture, around f2.8 or f4, and using aperture priority mode I allowed the camera to determine the shutter speed, and although I kept an eye on it this wasn't a problem because it was fairly bright outside.

Top image - Greenfinch feeding.
Bottom image - Chaffinch feeding.

John Williams Photography Blog Is Launched

Welcome to John Williams Photography Blog, this is something I have been thinking about starting up for a while now, my intention is to post daily pictures and regular updates about projects I am working on. If you haven't visited my website then please have a look at John Williams Photography, there you can read my biography and see some examples of my work, although at the moment I am branching out into wildlife photography, particularly birds, and will be sharing my progress with you here.

I am a Brighton (United Kingdom) based photographer and work both traditionally using film and digitally using a digital SLR camera, and in black and white and colour depending on the project or the needs of a client.

To contact me please email me or go to Contact Me and use the email form.