WORLDWIDE PHOTO WEEK: Part 751 - Around my Neighborhood

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I've never been into reflections that much ... but last week I watched a video on YouTube by Ray Hennessy that was about foregrounds and backgrounds in bird photography.

So then when I was out shooting on Thursday, I remembered the things Ray had talked about in that video, and that got me thinking about how I could position the camera to get some of the beautiful blue river ice in front of this Hooded Merganser, as well as behind him. . Then as he was swimming around in front of me, and I was watching him through my viewfinder, I noticed how his reflection kind of blended into the blue blur of the ice in the foreground. . Thought it looked pretty cool.

The ice on my river here is all gone now .... the doggone warm spell this weekend melted it all away, and now I have to wait a whole year for more good winter waterfowl opportunities. . Sad. . I really should move somewhere where it gets colder and stays cold longer.

This is the video that I watched that inspired me to try something a bit different with my camera position / composition:

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=5FSTbpK0GRQ

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19202955
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I've never been into reflections that much ... but last week I watched a video on YouTube by Ray Hennessy that was about foregrounds and backgrounds in bird photography.

So then when I was out shooting on Thursday, I remembered the things Ray had talked about in that video, and that got me thinking about how I could position the camera to get some of the beautiful blue river ice in front of this Hooded Merganser, as well as behind him. . Then as he was swimming around in front of me, and I was watching him through my viewfinder, I noticed how his reflection kind of blended into the blue blur of the ice in the foreground. . Thought it looked pretty cool.

The ice on my river here is all gone now .... the doggone warm spell this weekend melted it all away, and now I have to wait a whole year for more good winter waterfowl opportunities. . Sad. . I really should move somewhere where it gets colder and stays cold longer.

This is the video that I watched that inspired me to try something a bit different with my camera position / composition:

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=5FSTbpK0GRQ

Hosted photo: posted by Tom Reichner in
./showthread.php?p=192​02955&i=i155527063
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Wow. I love this shot.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19202955
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I've never been into reflections that much ... but last week I watched a video on YouTube by Ray Hennessy that was about foregrounds and backgrounds in bird photography.

So then when I was out shooting on Thursday, I remembered the things Ray had talked about in that video, and that got me thinking about how I could position the camera to get some of the beautiful blue river ice in front of this Hooded Merganser, as well as behind him. . Then as he was swimming around in front of me, and I was watching him through my viewfinder, I noticed how his reflection kind of blended into the blue blur of the ice in the foreground. . Thought it looked pretty cool.

The ice on my river here is all gone now .... the doggone warm spell this weekend melted it all away, and now I have to wait a whole year for more good winter waterfowl opportunities. . Sad. . I really should move somewhere where it gets colder and stays cold longer.

This is the video that I watched that inspired me to try something a bit different with my camera position / composition:

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=5FSTbpK0GRQ

Hosted photo: posted by Tom Reichner in
./showthread.php?p=192​02955&i=i155527063
forum: Member Activities

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That is one wild looking duck!
Very pretty shot Tom

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19202955
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I've never been into reflections that much ... but last week I watched a video on YouTube by Ray Hennessy that was about foregrounds and backgrounds in bird photography.

So then when I was out shooting on Thursday, I remembered the things Ray had talked about in that video, and that got me thinking about how I could position the camera to get some of the beautiful blue river ice in front of this Hooded Merganser, as well as behind him. . Then as he was swimming around in front of me, and I was watching him through my viewfinder, I noticed how his reflection kind of blended into the blue blur of the ice in the foreground. . Thought it looked pretty cool.

The ice on my river here is all gone now .... the doggone warm spell this weekend melted it all away, and now I have to wait a whole year for more good winter waterfowl opportunities. . Sad. . I really should move somewhere where it gets colder and stays cold longer.

This is the video that I watched that inspired me to try something a bit different with my camera position / composition:

https://www.youtube.co​m/watch?v=5FSTbpK0GRQ

Hosted photo: posted by Tom Reichner in
./showthread.php?p=192​02955&i=i155527063
forum: Member Activities

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That is a gorgeous shot, Tom!

I so get what you say about ice and snow. Especially snow is miraculous. When the world is all white it becomes a huge reflector and lights our subjects even and beautifully from all sides, without any hard contrasts. I learned that in the winter of 2011/12 I think it was, when we had a harsh, long winter here. The shots taken with my 40D and 5D are still so very lovely with the birds in that amazing light. On frozen water that reflects a blue sky, things are a bit different of course, as shown in your photo above with it's beautiful blue tones. But yes, I can understand how you long for long, cold winters!

I have bookmarked the video and will watch it later.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19202944
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This was so confusing to me - I couldn't figure out the perspective because the street/curb are perfectly parallel to the bottom of the frame, yet things still looked distorted. . Then I realized that the verticals are out of plumb. . So that means that you must have held the camera at an off-level angle, right?

Sorry if I sound critical - that is not my intention. . I like the image, but just want to understand it better, because the geometry is confusing my eyes and my brain.

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you're not wrong... I looked at it for a while when cropping it, there was a lamp-post on the left and lines on the road. In hindsight I probably should have straightened using the pole as a "correct" vertical and then cropped the road lines out, rather than crop first and align using the kerb as reference. (uncropped/unstraighte​ned pic below)

joeseph wrote in post #19202205
thanks Trevor, yes that's one from the modified M6.
Must say my enthusiasm for "normal" photography has been sorely lacking lately - not sure it it's the situation of the last year or what.
At least if I go for a walk with a camera of any description it's a good thing. How's yourself?

Thank you for asking!

I can't complain overall. Until the last week I was able to move around pretty much as I pleased. So, I could go to the zoo, museum, art gallery, or just enjoy going downtown. Then some unwise person, who should have known better having just had a COVID test because they were symptomatic, went to the gym, then shopping at a mall, then classes at one of the local technical institutes. Sure enough, they had COVID, and that has put about 1.5 million people in lock-down for a week.

I have been enjoying going to the art gallery and zoo - especially to try to keep up practice with my long lenses. I have just started a couple of units at university on Art History and Global Studies to keep my brain from completely stagnating!