Snow Falling on Redwoods

One from this afternoon when the snow was falling. Canon 7D and Canon EF-S 17-85mm lens. AV mode, ISO 800, F 5.6 at 1/200th of a sec. Pop up flash fired. Enjoy and God bless, chris

Showing Off Just a Little Gorget

Yesterday morning I spent a little more time photographing hummingbirds from the photoblind. I was trying to get one of he male Anna's hummingbirds to flash me with its gorget. The gorget on a hummingbird is the brilliant metallic feathers on their head, nape and breast. After a lot of work, effort and a lot of patience I was able to capture a partial display. I'll keep working on it. Photographing hummingbirds is a lot of fun to do and the results are just fantastic. God's beautiful light and love to all, chris

Cat in the Blind and Photographing Hummingbirds

This morning was one of those times where things were a bit of a struggle. I changed out the batteries on my flashes that weren't working properly and then I had problems with them being too bright.I moved the flashes back and they were better but not perfect. Following that the flowers needed to be moved because the hummingbirds were landing on them rather than flying to them. When I finally got settled into the photoblind Papaya the cat came into the blind. She decided my lap was just the most perfect spot to sit in the whole wide world. Naturally I obliged and it was just right. Sitting there in my photoblind petting a purring cat on my lap was pretty pleasant, at least until a hummingbird came buzzing in. Then I had to lean forward to look through the cameras view finder in order to compose my image. As you can imagine this is rather uncomfortable to do with a cat in ones lap. Papaya too decided she didn't like the situation and she climbed from my lap onto the top of my shoulders. It was a little awkward to say the least trying to photograph a hummingbird with a cat on top of me. My photography was cut short. I could have thrown the cat into the house and come back out but I have way too many chores around the house to accomplish today. God's blessings to all, chris

Almost Like Going Camping

This morning the weather was calm and warm. It was perfect for photographing humming birds in the backyard. As I was setting all the equipment up this morning the thought occurred to me that photographing hummingbirds is a lot like going camping. You have to dig out all the equipment that you haven't used in awhile and get it all organized and ready to go.You go camping and have a great time. Then when you are finished camping you have to pack it all up and put it away when you get home. Today was like that. I gathered up all my equipment got it organized and set it up. Flashes and light stands, flowers,feeders,tripods etc. Then I had a great time photographing hummingbirds. When I was done I had to take it down and pack it all up again. Mainly so the dogs don't knock anything over and smash up one of my flashes. Here are two Anna's hummingbirds from today's backyard outing It was lot's of fun and I want to do it again as photographing hummingbirds can be quite addictive. If you are a photographer interested in learning the basics check out my tutorial on hummingbird photography here. http://diyphotocheapodepot.blogspot.com/2011/08/typical-hummingbird-set-up.html God's love and blessings to everyone, chris