January

After finally recovering from December I'm ready to get back to work and start being creative. Right after I clean up the studio and find some space.

I've been playing trying to photograph birds in my back yard. This has actually been a slower process then I thought it would be as I'm trying to use remote setting on the camera and control it from my phone. I've se the GoPro up on both the feeder and the bath in hope of getting some slow motion of the birds flying. Turns out the birds are afraid of the camera. They fly up and when they spot it the turn away so its taken a good week of just leaving the camera out for them to get use to it. I'm finally getting some clips now the last week of January.

The next photo I wanted to get was bird flight trails, long exposure of a bird flying, but just the long exposure was giving me a blurry bird, so lets add a low power flash that an easy fix. Just put the dome on the flash and spray light in the general area of the bird, sounds easy. I started with setting the light up and then remembered that the birds don't like new things…ug… Luckily the light stand was far enough away in only took them the day to get use to it. Now we run into the first problem and the biggest problem. My flash when set to shoot external can't do second curtain shutter, it's available while the flash is mounted to the camera. I've spend some time looking this problem up and I guess my flashes just doesn’t have this function.

Not wanting to waste a day I changed plans and just went with freezing the birds in motion. This is where my second problem comes up. Now I don't trust the back of the camera for sharpness, images that look off in camera are often sharp when I look at them on the computer but this day the looked off. And when I looked at them on the computer some still look off. Now I have to wait for a sunny day and run some tests with the lens to make sure everything is working properly and it wasn't just something I was doing. The lens is old, I've had it for close to 4 years now I also bought it used and I also bike with it mounted to my chest so it gets bumped around a bit. Its totally possible that the lens need some servicing or maybe I just need a new lens

I'm continuing on my Found Garbage Project that I started in School, (Link here if haven't seen it yet) I've been biking the trails picking up trash and taking photos of it where I find it. I have a bucket that lives in the backyard that I fill up with the more interesting items I find while I'm out and its almost full so its about time to photograph some garbage

Also on a final side note I spend the last half of December teaching myself how to make paper. The end goal for this project is to print my garbage images on garbage paper. Full circle

Finally it is winter and this means the Snowy Owls have returned. I have yet to get a quality photo of them and I'm hoping this year would be the year. I've seen them the last few years, always at such a distance that I'm cropping in 400%.

Unfortunately it don't look that I'm going to get a photo this year either, as our local snowy owls were found dead. The early suspect was Rodenticide (rat poison) this was based the early report and how owls were found. Both owls were sent to Torontos wild life centre to determine the cause of death. Unfortunately the cause of death will never be 100% confirmed as both owls tested positive for HPAI, Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (Bird Flu) testing for other diseases apparently stops once HPAI is detected.

I've linked a Facebook post with more information and what can be done

Link with the updated information

https://www.facebook.com/groups/311954409884871/posts/1259275655152737/

February

November