Double Crested Cormorant on the Beach
Left my GoPro in the middle of gathering shorebirds. This young cormorant walked right up to the camera for a closer look...
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Left my GoPro in the middle of gathering shorebirds. This young cormorant walked right up to the camera for a closer look
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Aug, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken on a beach in Key Biscayne, an island just off of Miami, FL. In the late mornings the water is very shallow, allowing you to go pretty far out. Many cormorants and seagulls love to hang out in this part of the beach.Time
It was about 10am and I arrived at shortly before 9:30am and had the beach to myself. I went on a weekday just to make sure there would be limited people around since the birds are extremely skittish.Lighting
The sun's position at that hour was perfect. The key was positioning the shot. Since it was around 10 am, the sunlight would be hitting the shoreline. So I had to position the camera south-west. It provided plenty of light to bring out the details in the feathers and made a really cool shadow.Equipment
This was shot with a GoPro Hero 4 on a mini tripod. I was connected to the GoPro through my iPhone so I could live preview and trigger the shutter once the cormorant was in position.Inspiration
I love nature photography. I always want to get close shots of animals, but that is a lot more difficult sometimes than it seems. I always liked photos done by nature photographers who used camera traps to capture an intimate look of an animal in its habitat. So when I saw all of these birds in the water, I thought why not make my own camera trap? I put my Canon DSLR to the side grabbed my GoPro. I calmly walked into the middle of the birds, who of course started to slowly scatter. I walked back closer to the shore and waited, watching the live preview on my phone. The birds starting walking back to the area, and this cormorant came right up to the camera.Editing
I did minimal post-processing to the photo. Aside from some minor tweaks in brightness and saturation, the photo came out well on its own!In my camera bag
I try to be prepared for most scenarios when I go out to shoot. I always have my Canon 60d, Canon 70-300mm L, Canon 10-22mm, Tamron 28-75mm, Canon 40mm and of course my GoPro Hero 4 with a bunch of attachments. I rarely ever have a tripod with me, since most my nature shots require a lot of walking to get to. So my bag being light is essential.Feedback
Patience! I had to really watch the birds' behavior at first. You want to try and anticipate where they are going. They stayed in one general area in the water, so I knew that I had to put the camera there to get the shot. I tested them by walking out toward them and seeing what happens after I leave. They always came back to that spot, so I knew that I would have a good chance of getting the photo I wanted.
