PA190919
Oct, 2014Views
978
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Awards
Winner in Birds Photo Challenge
Absolute Masterpiece
Peer Award
Superb Composition
Top Choice
Magnificent Capture
All Star
Superior Skill
Outstanding Creativity
Emotions
Impressed
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Top 10 rank
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
The picture was taken at Thrigby Hall Wildlife Gardens. The venue has a small collection of animals however it offers some great photo opportunities and is one of my favourite animal collections to visitTime
The picture was taken shortly after a light lunch in the early afternoon.Lighting
By afternoon the sun was in a more ideal position as it was directly behind me. There was a fair amount of cloud cover which fortunately took away the possibility of the harsh lighting the sun often brings at this time of the day and this enabled me to make the most of the magnificent colouring of the bird.Equipment
The shot was taken on my old Olympus camera which sadly no longer functions due to over use. The lens was a 70-300mmInspiration
The fact I was able to position myself at the same level as the duck was an exciting prospect. Wherever possible I try to get at least level and sometimes even below my animal subjects to create a more realistic and interesting angle.Editing
Minimal processing was made using Lightroom to give the picture more clarity. Other than that no processing was undertaken or indeed necessary.In my camera bag
I now have a Canon 7D and my main lens is a 70-300mm. I do have other lenses however they are seldom used.Feedback
Animals in general require a lot of patience from the photographer and this is especially true of birds. It took quite a while for the Mandarin ducks in this collection to get used to my presence and I was lucky there were very few other visitors on the day of my visit. It took around thirty minutes before the ducks were confident enough that I wasn't a threat to them and in the end they were coming very close to where I was positioned.
