Badger the Wonder Dog

Sheltering in place has given some time to work on some personal projects. One of them dear to my heart is creating some portraits of our dog Badger. It's a work in progress as more ideas have been coming to my head. Luckily for me Lenore was able to help me today. The first photoshoot I had with Badger I did on my own and it was pretty tough. Badger handled it like a trooper. The fake red beam I had constructed was wobbly and slippery and he kept sliding down it. I sort of solved it by adding some black pads so he didn't slide down so badly. A couple of times he needed to be rescued as he was headed down like he was on a slide going backwards. This has been a really cool series to create. Hopefully there will be some more images of, Badger the Wonder Dog, to follow in the upcoming weeks. All of these images were created with a Canon EOS 7D or 7D MKII camera with a Canon EF 28-200 mm lens. Lighting was provided by Alien Bees Studio lights. God's love and blessings to one and all, chris #teamcanonusa

Beautiful Hummingbird Kind of Day

This afternoon I gathered up all of my hummingbird photography equipment and headed out into the backyard. I set it all up and climbed into my new hummingbird blind. I had my trusty Canon EOS 7D MKII camera with a Canon 100-400IS V.1 telephoto lens mounted on it. For lighting I had three Canon 540EZ Speedlights. One focused on the background and two for the hummingbird. After about a twenty minute wait the hummingbirds started coming into the feeder. I had some purple petunias set up in front of the feeder fro the hummingbirds to sample as well. There were two male Annas coming in as well as one Allen's/Rufous hummingbird. I had a great time and so did the hummingbirds. God's love and blessings to all, chris #teamcanonusa

No Sew Photoblind

This morning I completed building a "No Sew" photoblind that I will be using for photographing hummingbirds. I have already used it a number of times over the past month but I decided that it needed to be made into a proper photoblind with actual openings for the tripod legs and the camera lens. I had been shooting through the zipper openings. The blind is made from a pop up changing room that I purchased for eighteen bucks online. The first step was to set up my camera inside the blind on a tripod at the height I normally use it. In that position I could measure where the lens and tripod openings needed to be placed. A sharpie was then used to mark where the tripod leg opening should be for the lens opening I grabbed my largest lens shade and then marked the lens opening for the camera roughly a half inch larger than the lens shade. Using scissors I then cut all of the openings including small viewing ports next to the lens openings. Reinforcement for all of the openings cut into the photoblind was provided by using iron on jeans patches. Above the view ports and the lens ports I installed flaps made of pieces of camouflage scrap material cut from an old photoblind that I no longer use.The viewing ports were covered with landscape cloth.It's a very lightweight blind not made for rough field conditions. But it's perfect for use in the backyard. I really like how it turned out.God's precious light and love to all, chris

Surprised Me!

"Shelter in Place Photography", While gathering firewood for the wood stove this morning I was roused from my sleepy state when I picked up a piece of firewood to find a Northern Alligator Lizard under it. That gets your blood going. I captured it quite easily because it was slow moving due to the wet, chilly weather. I brought it inside and photographed it on a piece of wood then carefully let it go back into the forest next to the woodpile. It was photographed with a Canon EOS 7D camera and a Canon EF 28-200 mm lens. Camera settings used were M mode, ISO 100, F13.0 at 1/200th of a sec. Lighting was provided by an Alien bee 1600 with a small soft box overhead. #teamcanonusa God's blessings upon your day, chris. #teamcanonusa

Ahh, My Sweet Little Chickadee

This morning I worked on a set up that I wanted to call the, Steller's Jay Blues. First I set up a mixed blue background. In front of the background I put up a perch that I had found earlier in the week from the firewood pile. For the crowning glory I surrounded the perch with three purple and white Iris from the garden. I climbed into the photoblind with great expectations. I waited and I waited. One Steller's Jay came but there wasn't enough light to photograph it so I upped the ISO on my camera. Then the bully boys the Western Gray Squirrels showed up. I had to scare them away by rapping on the photoblind wall and telling them to go away. Instead they went up into the trees and began yelling at me. Finally another Jay stopped by. It hopped up onto the perch and I hit the shutter. The flash overexposed the image as I had upped the ISO after seeing the first Jay in low light thereby cancelling the flash settings I had inputted into the camera. I went back to the waiting game. A Raven stopped by and had a couple of peanuts. It never got into a position I could photograph it from before it left. My last visitor as the light was beginning to burn out was a little Chestnut Backed chickadee that was almost overwhelmed by the size of the set up I had created. Some days you have to just take what you can get. God's blessings upon your weekend, chris This image was created by a Canon EOS 7DMKII camera and a Canon 100-400 L IS USM v.1 lens. Fill flash was provided by a Canon 550 EX Speedlight set to - 1 1/3rd stops. The Camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 400, F 8.0 at 1/50th of a sec. #teamcanonusa