Shirley Davis (shirleydavis_4618) is a Canadian photographer and has had a passion for nature photography and travel for as long as she can remember. She specializes in nature, wildlife and landscape photography and uses photography as a way of meditating - a kind of therapy. With great respect and patience with nature she captures the beauty of the wilderness and its free creatures in it.
I love photography because... it helps me see the beauty in the world and keeps my attention in the moment. I find it very therapeutic.
My camera lets me... see details I wouldn’t see otherwise, especially with night photography (auroras and the Milky Way).
I find inspiration... when I’m surrounded by nature.
One of the photos I am most proud of... is my Milky Way Mountain photo because the night was magical at the mountain pond, which was smooth as glass. The Milky Way was so bright it could be seen reflecting in the pond. I’m proud of this photo because I feel I captured the magic of the night.
My favorite place to shoot is... Africa because I love wildlife and Africa has its own type of beauty. I haven’t been there since I started using a digital camera so I think it’s time to return to there.
One of my favorite photos on ViewBug is... BastianHerrmann's photo "Angel" because it makes me feel sad. Although I might say WOW to a lot of photos, not many make me feel an emotion per say.
One of my favorite photographers on Viewbug is... danieljamesgreenwood because I like the way he makes his night skies glow in the photos.
These are 3 quick tips I’d like to share with fellow photographers:
Follow your creative vision and not the vision of others, read about photography as much as you can (there’s lots of great tips in magazines), and learn how to set your exposures correctly in the field to save yourself a lot of time on the computer in post processing.
One photo that was difficult to shoot was... Elbow Falls at Night because there was no moonlight to light the waterfall and I couldn’t find it in my viewfinder due to the darkness. My flashlight wasn’t strong enough to provide light at that distance so to get the composition correct I had to do a lot of trial and error. Also, I didn’t want the ISO too high due to noise issues in the photo (I kept the ISO at 6400), so I had to do a lot of adjustments in Photoshop to get the exposure the way I wanted it.
