WildBird

The Perfect Picture

The Perfect Picture By Nathan Cornwell What makes a photograph? Any bird photographer you ask will probably talk about aperture, lighting, and most important, focus. These are all important aspects of a good photo, who can say that a blurry picture is good? And who could say that a photo in which the bird is reduced to a dark blob is a keeper? Those three pieces of the puzzle are essential, but there are still several pieces missing. One piece that is oft overlooked is action. Anyone can take a photo of a bird standing still. Anyone can take a “field guide photo”-one that shows the bird in a pose that is not particularly interesting and/or in a pose that shows as many field marks as possible. But it takes a special person to get that endearing photo, that photo that shows what the bird is-not just what it looks like. That photo shows that the photographer hunted for the bird, watched the bird, knew the bird, knew it so well that he/she knew exactly when to press the shutter release button. The photographer put some of his/her soul into the photo. Another piece of the gigantic puzzle that makes up a great bird photo is the bird’s habitat. I one birding magazine I read, I came across an article labeled “Tips for Bird Photography.” It said underneath a photo of a Red-Eyed Vireo, “I used a small aperture to eliminate a busy background and create a pleasing blur.” Frankly, I do not agree. A formless blur for a background is only acceptable to me if the photo shows a good portion of what the bird is sitting on. This may sound silly, but I find photos of a bird surreally smacked right into the middle of a blur just what I said, surreal. It shows nothing of what the bird is. It shows nothing of the trials that the photographer no doubt conquered to get that photo. I keep speaking of trials. I speak true. There are endless frustrations and obstacles to face, endless possibilities for errors-and bad luck-in the challenging field of bird photography. And the photo does show some of what the photographer coped with to get the photo. The more the photographer had to endure to get the photo, the better. Like my grandma says, “waiting and suffering for something makes it feel better when you finally get it.” For example, a photo taken in a marsh shows that he/she probably endured mosquitoes, muck, and water to get their priceless keeper. After enduring all that, they got their photo. That photo now holds something from the photographer’s heart, the piece of it they put into coping with all of the hardships. So, you say to me, you are saying that a photo containing a bird on a feeder shows that the photographer just sat in his/her backyard and waited, so that photo is worth nothing because there were no challenges to overcome, right? Wrong. You waited for the bird to show up, right? That is a hardship. I really like backyard bird photography, so I don’t have much to say against it. Sometimes it’s a nice respite from trekking through all sorts of foul territory to get a photo. But be warned-taking photos of tamed birds is not satisfactory. Taking photos of tamed birds rejects all that I have said here and therefore believe. So what does this photography critic like? I admit that I am a little picky about photographs. This reason for this is simple-I love birds. I love photographing birds. I really love the challenges of bird photography, and therefore feel that I have been cheated somehow when I see a picture of a bird that I don’t like. What I want from a photo is all of the mandatory stuff, plus some of my heart. The parts of my hearts I have used to cope with all of the hardships scream at me, “What about us?!” when I see one of those lifeless photos. Therefore, my special preference is that a photo must have some of the bird’s habitat. This goes back to what I said about putting the photographer’s soul into the photo. Maybe that’s why I lay down in the mud, crawl through blackberries, and army-crawl through dew-soaked grass to get a close-up of a gull. I offer a piece of my soul to the birds and am proud of it.

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