blonde Camera Club

[Laxie]

Oh, I'm not at all questioning the ethics of it!  I totally agree with you on that side of it.

I look at the pictures and all I can think is, "I wonder what's going through that person's mind just there".  Apart from the obvious food thoughts anyway.  I guess I'm just a curious sort.

[Laxie]

Would you ask him ^^ for permission?

Ha, Andy Grays twin.

And not in a month of Sundays would I have the nerve to ask him what was on his mind most days.  But if ya caught me in one of my mischievous moods, anything's possible.

[millidonk]

Swans.

Trees.

swans you want, swans you got:

http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=54004.0

[kinboshi]

OK.  I've picked three (ish)....

Click to see full-size image.

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[ManuelsMum]

Sticking my neck out a bit here, but I'd vote swans too. Great effort by Tikay on the main blonde photography thread already.

They seem to do quite well in Wildlife Photographer of the Year also, both of these were category winners

Ellen Anon (United States of America)

Whooper lift-off

'My fingers, double-gloved, had gone numb. Waves on Japan's Lake Kussharo, Hokkaido, were starting to freeze solid, and I was in awe that these gorgeous birds could face the water. By now, the wind had churned the lake up into white peaks that echoed the snowy mountains behind. When one swan began to taxi along the churning runway, I managed to make my frozen index finger release the shutter just before it took off.' Like its close North American relative the trumpeter swan, whooper swans are named after their distinctive loud call, heard from flocks on the water or in flight. The yellow base to their black bill typically extends to a point beyond the nostril, distinguishing them from the smaller, but otherwise similar tundra swan.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II + Canon 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 lens; 1/800 sec at f11; ISO 400.

Click to see full-size image.

Yongkang Zhu (China)

Snow swans

'To photograph the swans in their environment meant I had to endure the same conditions - snowstorms and high winds that roll the snow across the flat land in great waves. The storm was so bitter I wished I could have escaped along with the swans.' Every winter, huge flocks of whooper swans migrate from the far north of Europe and Asia to warmer lowlands. The Rongcheng Swan Lake nature reserve in eastern China is a major overwintering sanctuary for whooper swans. But even here, when the fresh water freezes, the birds are forced to feed in the fields, digging through the snow for grass.

Canon EOS 20D + Sigma 300-800mm f5.6 lens at 300mm; 1/1250 sec at f6.3; ISO 200; tripod.

Click to see full-size image.

[Redsgirl]

Its a beautiful clear night.
Come on Machka, Get tha' camera aht fo' t lads!

[Geo the Sarge]

Sticking my neck out a bit here, but I'd vote swans too. Great effort by Tikay on the main blonde photography thread already.

They seem to do quite well in Wildlife Photographer of the Year also, both of these were category winners

Ellen Anon (United States of America)

Whooper lift-off

'My fingers, double-gloved, had gone numb. Waves on Japan's Lake Kussharo, Hokkaido, were starting to freeze solid, and I was in awe that these gorgeous birds could face the water. By now, the wind had churned the lake up into white peaks that echoed the snowy mountains behind. When one swan began to taxi along the churning runway, I managed to make my frozen index finger release the shutter just before it took off.' Like its close North American relative the trumpeter swan, whooper swans are named after their distinctive loud call, heard from flocks on the water or in flight. The yellow base to their black bill typically extends to a point beyond the nostril, distinguishing them from the smaller, but otherwise similar tundra swan.

Canon EOS-1D Mark II + Canon 28-300mm f3.5-5.6 lens; 1/800 sec at f11; ISO 400.

Click to see full-size image.

Yongkang Zhu (China)

Snow swans

'To photograph the swans in their environment meant I had to endure the same conditions - snowstorms and high winds that roll the snow across the flat land in great waves. The storm was so bitter I wished I could have escaped along with the swans.' Every winter, huge flocks of whooper swans migrate from the far north of Europe and Asia to warmer lowlands. The Rongcheng Swan Lake nature reserve in eastern China is a major overwintering sanctuary for whooper swans. But even here, when the fresh water freezes, the birds are forced to feed in the fields, digging through the snow for grass.

Canon EOS 20D + Sigma 300-800mm f5.6 lens at 300mm; 1/1250 sec at f6.3; ISO 200; tripod.

Click to see full-size image.

Stunning, very nice find

Geo

[Geo the Sarge]

A sentence from the passage that Manuelsmum put up with the glorious swans pic says it all for me:

To photograph the swans in their environment meant I had to endure the same conditions

I get far more pleasure having to put myself out to get a pic, knowing that it just wouldn't be the same without having done so.

Editing/cropping etc doesn't really do anything for me at all. Whilst it may provide a really good end result, the pic will always be tainted in my mind.

Geo

[bobby1]

those swan pics are incredible, have they been touched up at all?

Is it possible to tell?

Abs loving the work  in the photos guys.

[tikay]

those swan pics are incredible, have they been touched up at all?

Is it possible to tell?

Abs loving the work  in the photos guys.

Thanks Phil, it'a a gift I have.

[bobby1]

That Kang fellas were ok too Tony

 

[ManuelsMum]

Wp Tony

I love Wildlife Photographer of the Year, loads of inspiring stuff.
Never considered that retouching question, I'm sure it's taken into account, and they probably look for as little of it as possible. Maybe dust-spot removal is ok.
I do know that they like the 'Wildlife' bit in the title, one guy won with an incredible shot of a wolf jumping over a fence. Then the biologists etc who knew of such animals came forward and said that they just wouldn't do that. Turned out, the guy had used a 'trained' wolf, lost his prize.

For the second pic Tony used "Canon EOS 20D + Sigma 300-800mm f5.6 lens at 300mm;

Lots of space between shooter+swans = loads of nice snowflakes, as we were discussing.

[bobby1]

Wp Tony

I love Wildlife Photographer of the Year, loads of inspiring stuff.
Never considered that retouching question, I'm sure it's taken into account, and they probably look for as little of it as possible. Maybe dust-spot removal is ok.
I do know that they like the 'Wildlife' bit in the title, one guy won with an incredible shot of a wolf jumping over a fence. Then the biologists etc who knew of such animals came forward and said that they just wouldn't do that. Turned out, the guy had used a 'trained' wolf, lost his prize.

For the second pic Tony used "Canon EOS 20D + Sigma 300-800mm f5.6 lens at 300mm;

Lots of space between shooter+swans = loads of nice snowflakes, as we were discussing.

That sounds a bit tough, even if you train the wolf to jump its surely the taking of the photo that wins the prize.

[RED-DOG]

A sentence from the passage that Manuelsmum put up with the glorious swans pic says it all for me:

To photograph the swans in their environment meant I had to endure the same conditions

I get far more pleasure having to put myself out to get a pic, knowing that it just wouldn't be the same without having done so.

Editing/cropping etc doesn't really do anything for me at all. Whilst it may provide a really good end result, the pic will always be tainted in my mind.

Geo

I didn't realise you were such a purist Geo.


And here's me thinking you used that 21X zoom lens to artificially get 21 times closer to your subject, and then used a vast array of automatic in-camera processing features like auto light metering, auto focus, auto white balance, auto noise reduction etc before going on to use a computer programme to electronically re-size your photographs ready for uploading...   


Seriously though Geo, all photographs are "Edited".  Even when film is developed the photographer or technician has to decide how big to print it and how long to leave in in the fluid.

Cropping is exactly the same as taking a pair of scissors and cutting a bit off a photograph before pasting it into the album.

[Graham C]

Quite like the idea of a birds theme, swans is perhaps a bit too specific.  If I lived in the tundra or the northern most parts of somwhere cold I'd be up for it but the only swans around here are on the brown Thames and are pretty uninspiring.