Up Close and Personal

I've never really like images of hummingbirds on feeders. Seeing the feeder included in the image just makes it seem too unnatural. However I took exception to that this morning when I set my photoblind and tripod right next to the feeder and I do mean right next to it! When I mounted my camera and macro lens onto the tripod the tip of the lens was a little less than a foot away from the feeder. I used some tape to block off all of the feeding ports except for the one on the side. When the hummingbirds started coming I was ready. I let them feed for awhile to get used to it and then I very slowly composed and focused the camera. Between the swinging of the feeder and the low light conditions I ended up with a lot of images that went directly into the trash. Three of them were just superb. I love the intimate look at the Annas' Hummingbirds that this macro lens could give. Hoping that you have a great weekend. God's blessings to all, chris All images were created with a Canon EOS 7D MkII camera and a Tamron SP DI 180mm Macro lens. The camera was mounted on a Manfrotto tripod with a Bogen 3055 Heavy duty ballhead. The camera settings used were manual focus, AV mode, ISO 800, F8.0, the shutter speeds used were 1/30th, 1/80th and 1/60th of a sec. #TeamCanon, #WithMyTamron

Stellers' Portrait

Yesterday when I was photographing chickadees a Steller's Jay landed on the perch I was using for my set up. Because I was zoomed all the way out for small birds the jay wouldn't fit in the frame. I just went with it and did a portrait instead. I really like the contrast of the orange and yellow against the blues. God's love and blessings to all, chris This image was created with a Canon 7D MkII camera and a Canon 100-400 IS v.1 lens on a Manfrotto 055XPROB tripod with a Bogen ballhead. Fill flash was provided with a Canon 550 EX flash set to -2 and 1/3 stops. The camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 800, f 8.0 at 1/60th of a sec. #TeamCanon

Creating Intimacy

There are three key elements in creating an intimate portrait. The first one is to get in close. You want to be close enough to be able to see the expression of the subjects eyes which is the most important feature. That usually (not always) means using a telephoto lens to get up close an personal with your subject. This can also be done with a photoblind or just getting your subject comfortable with your presence. The second one is to photograph on the same level as the subject. This applies to photographing children as well as pets and small animals as well. It is usually best to get down to their level by getting closer to the ground where they are. For squirrels and other small mammals it means lying on the ground with your camera in the dirt. For the image of the Anna's Hummingbird below it meant raising my camera way up on my tripod to where I was almost on my tippy toes. The third element is to carefully choose your background behind the subject so that it is non distracting and makes your subject stand out. This means that you will be shooting with a fairly wide F stop to blur out the background. In the case of the hummingbird below I had to slowly move around to find a spot where there were only dark trees behind the hummingbird. Grab your camera and go out and give it a try. See what beautiful images you can create. God's love and blessings to all, chris

Patience for the Portrait of a Hummingbird

If you live in the Americas the chances that you have hummingbirds nearby for at least part of the year are pretty good. If you or a neighbor have a hummingbird feeder the probability of having hummingbirds goes way up. Most hummingbirds that visit feeders are fairly tolerant of people. Because of this you can often get fairly close to them. This can be very helpful in capturing the portrait of a hummingbird especially if you toss in one of their potential habits. Most hummingbirds are creatures of habit. They love to perch in the same spot after feeding. This morning I sat and watched the hummingbirds in my backyard from out the window for about twenty minutes before I even picked up my camera. During that time period I discovered several perches that they loved to use. Next I grabbed my camera and focused it on the perch they were using most. I stood motionless behind the camera for about ten minutes or so. You could also just sit back in a chair and not move too much. Following that I moved forward a couple of steps and repeated the process. I did this several times until I was about eight feet away. (My camera won't focus any closer than that!) From this distance I was able to get some really nice portraits. Be sure to watch the backgrounds behind your subject. One other thing that you can do if your camera has a remote is to set your camera on a tripod focused on the perch. Then slowly over time move the camera closer and closer to the perch while you sit much further away. It is incredible how close you can get your camera to a hummingbird using this technique. Go out and give it a try. It's good to be outdoors enjoying nature. God's love and blessings to all, chris

Portrait of a Jay

I spent some time with the Steller's Jay this morning. It was a bit chilly this morning with the temperatures just hovering above thirty. Luckily the sun was out so inside the photoblind it warmed up to be comfortable. The Steller's Jays were coming and going competing with a Douglas Tree Squirrel for the feeder. I set up a squirrel feeder off to the side but for some reason the squirrel wasn't interested in it. After about an hour in the blind I edited my images and these were my favorite ones. God's love and blessings to all, chris Image created with a Canon 7D anda Canon 100-400 IS lens.

Scattered Images from My Mind

Here are a mix of images from throughout this week. Starting with my view of the Little Lake Valley in the evening and the sunset over the Mendocino Coastline and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Then a flower from a bunch Lenore picked up at the florist. These are followed by some House Finches and one White Breasted Nuthatch that remained almost motionless in this same postion for almost close to five minutes. I think there was a hawk really close by because no other birds came to the bird feeder during that time. last but not least there is "Badger the Wonder Dog" who spent some time sleeping at my feet when I was in the photoblind this week. May you have a wonderful and blessed weekend, chris All the bird images were created using techniques covered in, "Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography" available in both hardbound as an E book at most online Book seller and regular book stores.

Pigeon Portrait

I went out and sat in the photoblind this morning for a couple of hours photographing both Band-tailed Pigeons and Steller's Jays. In fact those were the only birds that came to the bird feeder. I heard a couple of Mourning Doves and one Pileated Woodpecker as well as some Nuthatches but none of them made an appearance. This Bandtail portrait was my favorite from the morning. Photographed with a Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm lens at 600mm. Camera settings were AV mode, ISO 800, F 8.0 at 1/60yh of a sec. God's precious light and love to all, chris To learn more about photographing birds in your backyard please check out my book, "Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography". It is available in both hardbound and as an ebook at most booksellers and online at Amazon. Paste the following into your browser. http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Backyard-Photography-Chris-Hansen/dp/1937538559

Portraits of Papaya

It's been frustrating waiting for the birds to start using the bird feeder at my photoblind out in the Little Lake Valley. Lately at my house which is typical for winter I have been limited to photographing Steller's Jays and chickadees. It will be great to start photographing some new species. Sunday afternoon Papaya Annika's cat was sitting in the living room so I decided she would be fun to photograph. I made a lot of images and boiled them down to an even dozen. Enjoy the many faces of Papaya the cat. God bless, chris Images created with a Canon 7D and a Canon 85mm lens.Camera was set to AV mode, ISO 400, Shutter speed and F stop varied. Natural light hand held.

Spoiled Rotten Dog

Today was mostly a non photography day. Last night we made a late night decision to go watch an Ultimate Tournament down in Sonoma County . We were out of the house and on the road before seven thirty a.m. Why do most of my days start so early? We decided it would be easier to bring our dog Badger along for the ride rather than putting him in his dog kennel for the day. He had a great time. At the tournament the players absolutely loved him. He got more attention than we did. My favorite image was of him watching the game and then looking back over his shoulder to check on me. I really like it. God's love and blessings to all, chris Images created with a Canon 7D and a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM handheld. camera settings used, AV mode, ISO 400, F4.5 at 1/2,000th of a sec.

Using What's On Hand or Portrait of a Dog

Yesterday afternoon I was working around the house when I noticed our dog Badger was lying in shaft of light on the living room floor. Perfect for a dog portrait I immediately thought to myself. The lighting was fantastic. The primary problem was that behind him the background was a mess. There was a bright gold trimmed woodstove and and some light colored tile. Not the best things for a good background for a portrait. What could I place behind Badger to create a better background? I have some portable backdrops but Badger is afraid of them! That wouldn't do. Instead I used a chair with a black hoodie draped over the back of it. I slowly and carefully placed it behind Badger so he wouldn't move. Then I lay down on the floor in front of him so I could get down to his level so the hoodie would be behind him. His face was a bit shadowed but it was a great portrait. God's blessings to all, chris

Annika's Pet Bee

Today we went to Lake Mendocino a short drive from our house in Northern California to go bike riding and do a little kayaking. It was a beautiful day to be out. It was in the mid eighties and there was a fresh breeze blowing. A great day to be at the lake.When we stopped for a snack this honey bee was very attracted to Annika. It spent five minutes crawling all over her hands licking the wax from her lip balm that had gotten on her fingers when she had applied it. This made for an awesome stock image on nature.There is no way I could remain calm while a honeybee crawled all over me. Annika on the other hand just studied it as it crawled over her hand.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Photoshop Fun

I'm not a big Photoshop kind of guy but every once in awhile I get the bug and I like to get creative and have some fun. I found this old Yugoslavian bill when I was cleaning up in the office a few days ago and I thought what can I do with this? It sat around by my keyboard for a few days and then it hit me today. I'll replace the welders face with Annikas. I took Annika outside and photographed her face in a similar position and layered it in. She complained that it makes her look too manly. The wleder would probably say that it makes him too feminine. I'll let them argue it out. I think it looks pretty cool.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Grub Dog

Today Lenore and I are working on the archeological dig in the garage. We are uncovering aspects of life from the 1950s to the present. There seems to be a lot of materials on how to educate children and help them with their speech and learning problems.
Hmnnn... what did these people do for a living?

While we were working Badger must have felt left out or just needed some attention. Suddenly he just started running around the yard fullbore at breakneck speed. It ended with him jumping into the pond and spinning in circles and biting at the moss. Afterwards he settled content on the patio. I guess he burned off the excess energy or whatever he had to do. Maybe we need to do that once in awhile too.

God's love to all,

chris

Portraits

A mixture of portraits over the past few days. When I got out of the car at Annika's friends house there was this cute cat wanting me to pet it so I obliged. As payment I took a few images. When I got home there were some mushrooms to be captured onto the cameras sensor.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Badgers Modeling Career

Badger acted as a stand in model today when I was shooting portraits. He will do anything for a little praise and a dog biscuit. He sat there so patiently while Lenore positioned him and put a Santa hat on his head.



God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Badger Dog

With the lights still up from our Christmas portrait session I decided to take a few images of Badger the worthless dog. Actually he's not entirely worthless as he wants to please everyone and he wants to be petted constantly. Plus he makes a great foot warmer on cold days. Which is what he is doing right now as I am typing.



During our image taking he kept licking his chops as he really wanted that doggie treat I had in my shirt pocket. it sure kept his attention that's for sure.

God's love and blessings to all,

chris

Gobble,Gobble,Gobble

Today dawned wet and rainy. Not usually the best conditions for photography but pretty good for portraits. I planned on finding the deer again and using my telephoto to get some close up portraits. The deer however proved elusive and were nowhere to be found. Turkeys however were out in abundance. So make lemonade and create turkey images.

Even then things didn't go as planned. When I was almost done with the turkeys I noticed that my camera was not set to where I usually keep it on the exposure settings. In fact I was four stops way too dark. Wow! How long had I been shooting images this way? I reset my camera and finished up. When I got home and uploaded my images I discovered that it was at about the halfway point during the mornings photography. Ouch. Nothing can be done but move on as these things sometimes do happen. It will remind me to keep looking at my camera settings as I doing my photography.

God's blessings to all,

chris

Going to the Dogz

Today was relativeley uneventful. I got up and took Annika to school and then went and worked out at the gym. I had planned to photograph deer on the way home but then a bunch of stuff got in the way of that. I had to do some grocery shopping and pay a bill. When I arrived home I put all the groceries in their proper places and then pulled out the crockpot and commenced to make "Chicken Chipotle" for tonight's dinner. By the time I finished I wasn't in the mood to chase deer as the lighting was pretty iffy.



Next I sorted images from Annika's volleyball game yesterday to give to her coach. Following that I looked outside and thought to myself. Why not get a couple of portraits of the dogs? So I grabbed a couple of doggie biscuits, a black backdrop along with my camera,the dogs of course and that is what I did. I hope you enjoy them. Let me know what you think by adding a comment.


Now to go clean the house. Woot! Woot!

God's blessings to all,

chris

Camera At the Ready

Going to the dogs again. Pets are always fun to photograph even if the market for them is flooded. So why shoot images of them? I would say that because it's fun and it helps create our own fond memories of them even if we don't end up using the image in a calendar or some other product.

This morning I was on the run trying to get my daughter Annika off to school. I almost always have a camera in hand or one nearby. It is amazing how many great wildlife opportunities I have had over the years just dropping my kid off at school. This morning as I'm headed for the door I look back at Badger. He is waiting on the step to see if he is going to get to go in the car too.

My photo brain immediately kicks in and sees a perfect lighting situation. Badger is sitting in soft morning light with the dark shadows of the dining room behind him. I tell him to stay and I'm surprised that he does. I grab the camera off of the counter and shoot off about ten images. Voila! A pretty cool picture of Badger appears on the back of the camera as I chimp it. OOOOO!

God's light and love to all,

chris

Presidential Material

This image was shot for a really good friend of mine David Meyer. It was taken not long after David was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer. David was asked by the eighth grade class to speak at their graduation ceremony as he was a tough,well liked teacher before he was forced to retire by his illness.

When David first started his speech I moved through the crowd looking for what I felt was the iconic image. I took pictures of interested students and parents in the crowd. I shot numerous close ups of David. Finally I found what I was looking for when I noticed an American flag close to him. I moved into a position that put the flag behind David and shot several frames. I had my image.

David served as an Air force Chaplain and he is very proud of being an American. The flag behind him really seemed to fit who David is and what he stands for. Currently David is fighting his cancer and is going on his second year. When I talked to him a couple of days ago he stated that God will take care of him whether he lives or dies.Even though he is often times afraid he said he still has that faith. He feels assured that God has stated that he will heal him for his purpose.

I'm really happy with how the image came out and David and his wife were too.

Sincerely and God bless,

chris