Guillemot Pair

While in Shetland in the summer you must go to the Isle of Noss where Thousands of pairs of seabirds nest. They have Guillemots, Shags, Gannets and likely lots that I’m not remembering too. You can get into the island via a boat between Noss and Bressay if you want to walk the island but we took a boat tour that takes you directly to the nesting site. It’s hard in a situation like that yo isolate birds in a frame but I manages this shot of a pair of Guillemots. Amazing how much they resemble small penguins. I like the environmental composition in this. Who says we have to fill the frame?

Photo of the Week #240

Photographers seem to lean in one of two ways, one very technical, the other more creative. The creative people seem to be able to shoot completely unencumbered by all that technical clutter and pay little attention to it. On the other hand, technical people are often so involved in the technical side of things that it often stands in the way of even shooting. I’m afraid I suffer from the latter. I’m always reading and researching something.

That said, I try to do something a little more creative here and there. This is obviously done digitally so I don’t see a series of these in my future but it’s fun to have a play. Comments always welcome.

Traveling

Traveling means different things to different people. Whatever works for you, that’s what you should do. We had a conversation with a friend recently about this. She prefers the idea of photo tours as opposed to solo trip planning. She gets a package of experiences planned by someone who knows the area and knows when to be where to increase your chances of getting best photos possible. I get it, it has it’s perks.

My wife and I have always planned our own trips and at first, we found that we tried to pack in too much and you’re just not devoting enough attention to any one area. Schedules aren’t conducive to creativity in my opinion. The last couple of years, we decided that it was so much more pleasing to pick a home base and plan day activities around that base. We may see fewer places overall, but what we do experience, we experience far deeper I think. Since we adopted the slow down and experience more plan, I think my photography has come up because of not being rushed. Sometimes we even return to a place more than once and that would never happen on an organized trip. Living life in a hurry just isn’t relaxing to me.

The photo below is a perfect example of taking my time. This was made on the second day we went to the island. The light still isn’t what I would like but it is much better than the first day. I wanted the stacks to have at least some light on them to define them a bit. I have one thing that bothers me about this composition, The stack on the right intersects with the far shore and I wish there was some space between them. I’m thinking there may even be a third visit to this beautiful place.