Thursday, March 12, 2009

At Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve with my Father...

This is one of the wetland streams. I shot this with a warm filter and the light setting at -3 yet I still needed to tweak the contrast and saturation to bring out the colours a little better.


I first thought shooting against the sun would make for a poor picture of this trail, yet I prefer it to the bland shots I have from the other direction. It wasn't an eary day, but I feel like the way the sun's shinning through the trees causes an uneasy vibe.
Though nature's colours were fairly dull today, I enjoy being able to bring out the colour through tweaking the contrast, brightness, saturation, and hue in a way that I feel complements the image as well as nature's beauty. Be sure to click the picture to see more detail, I have yet to figure out how to upload a smaller size so you currently get to see an extremely blown up version of the image. It's worth the click.

This looked like a good "sittin log" right by the river.

These two ducks obviously didn't want their picture taken, but as I ducked under some brush I got them on take off.

Here too, they try and escape the wrath of the Nikon D40.

This little guy's just given'r.

...a very neat and tidy farm I'd say.

And here are some of the trees in which the Blue Herons nest.

With a little zoom after the fact, this is as close as I could get to the most populated nesting trees. I've never before seen that many nests in one tree, these birds must have a definate sense of community. If you click the image you'll notice many of the nests are inhabited since this is that time of the year again.


If you click this this pic you'll notice the two bald eagles just off-centre to the right and slightly down a little. They too have begun their nesting season.


This is a shot is from inside bird blind (viewing shelter), it faces west so the sun didn't allow for any great shots...


But I stopped at the Sumas Exit off the #1 on the way home and snapped a bunch of sunset photos.


This one's my favorite simply because I don't normally accociate a thorny blackberry vine with a soft sunset. Such is life.
...And that was the end of my photographic journey to see the nesting Blue Herons with my Dad... it was relaxing, enjoyable and bonding, kinda like dirt-biking,
but in a different way.