White Ibis leaving the roost at Lake Alice on the University of Florida campus early one foggy morning. N70, 24-120 @120, sensia 100

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), March 09, 1999

Answers

I do happen to like blurry pictures of birds in motion and this is a nice example, especially with the contrast with the stationary birds in the tree. Maybe the birds are a little too blurry, though, because every time I look up again they first look like fish or squid!

Off on a tangent, this is the perfect example of why I am don't like E6 films - it's much too blue for my taste. If I had this image on my computer, I'd definitely take out a lot of the excess blue and make it more like a neutral gray, the way my eye (and Kodachrome 25/64) perceives this kind of light.

Frank

-- Frank Kolwicz (bb389@lafn.org), March 09, 1999.

I like this image. I like the way the motion and the static content come together. I like how the tree is positioned in the frame and how the blur of motion suggests an unseen destination. And I specially like the blue cast, I think it makes the picture a lot more interesting.

-- sanjoy (sanjoy@eng.auburn.edu), March 09, 1999.

Frank is correct, this image has a blue cast. The version shown here is true to the slide, but obviously not what my eye saw. However, I liked the effect and didn't set a neutral point with photoshop. I would have liked the stationary birds to be a bit sharper, but the 24-120 isn't a fast lens. Comments are especially welcome on this image as I might be able to get another shot at it.

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), March 10, 1999.

Larry,

I think its a fantastic shot. Very dreamlike and otherworldly to me. If you shoot it again, I might frame a little to the right and get rid of some of the jumbled branches that contain no birds, maybe get more birds in flight, but this shot is very nice the way it is. Do you have something between the 120 end of your zoom and your 400 that could make the birds a bit larger without losing the open feeling given by a wider shot? Boy, I miss Gainesville.

Peter

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), March 10, 1999.

I think that this is one of the more interesting photos I have seen at this site. I love it and wouldn't change a thing.

-- Gary Whalen (whalen@circle.net), March 10, 1999.

Okay Larry, keep posting stuff like this, and I'm never posting anything here, even if I ever get around to building a web page to put my pitures on! Another great shot.

-- Brad Hutcheson (bhutcheson@iname.com), March 10, 1999.

Thanks for your comments. I think there are basically three levels of creative process to make an image like this. There's the skillful use of a mastered technique, the happy experiment, and the happy accident. I have to confess that this was a just a happy accident! My intent was to get a picture of the roosting birds in the fog, and I was a bit disappointed when they starting flying off in the middle of the exposure. However, it seems the more I'm out in interesting places in good light, the more happy accidents I seem to have. Next time, the image will hopefully be a happy experiment, and who knows, maybe some day I'll know what the image will turn out to be before I trip the shutter.

-- Larry Korhnak (lvk@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu), March 10, 1999.

Whatever the intent and whatever the technique, the result is excellent. To me the blue cast adds to the etherial quality of the image. Wonderful!

-- Garry Schaefer (schaefer@pangea.ca), March 10, 1999.

Nice shot Larry. A good break from the usual static wildlife shot. It's not luck when you place yourself in the right spot at the right time.

-- Mike Green (mgprod@mindspring.com), March 14, 1999.