Saturday, Apr 29th, was a BIG day for me! Finally got to participate in a Birding Weekend activity that I've been trying to do for the past couple years. But every time I tried to do it, this particular activity was already booked up. But this year, I caught it in time, and got to take the 8-hour Smith Island Boat Tour! I was SO excited! A little concerned, too, because I know how I get seasick. But I took some dramamine the day before, hoping the sleepiness would be gone by the next day but that I would still be protected since it was a 24-hour pill. Well, the seasickness wasn't a problem, but that darn sleepiness lasted for 2 days! Oh well! I wasn't sick, and that was the most important thing!
I've been calling it the Pelican Cruise all these years because there are innumerable pelicans out there in the Smith Island area, and that was the whole purpose for me. Unfortunately, those guys were nesting about 2 weeks early this year, and they were NOT plentiful! We really didn't see any until we almost back to our marina at the end of the day. And by that time, most of the fish that were purchased to feed and lure them had already been fed to the seagulls. Nonetheless, we did get about 4 or 5 that played along with us there at the end, and I was indeed able to get a bunch of shots!
My BIF skills, what little I had, have definitely suffered over the past 3 months as we've had the babies with us, and photography outings are few and far between. I filled two SD cards, mostly from the boat which was obviously an additional handicap, and the first card was basically a bomb. Pretty much no useable shots at all. But by the second card, I had regained a little bit of control over that big ol lens, and so I was grateful that the pelicans waited to make their appearance. Even so, none of my shots were as sharp as they should have been. Tough cookies, tho, because I'm sharing them anyway!! :-)
As for this shot, this was one of my favorites. Unfortunately, as Frank Hymus would say, "Shame about that back wing." :-)
Well done! (P.S. next time, if you can find it, try Bonine instead of Dramamine. It has the same active ingredient to prevent seasickness but does not have the ingredient that causes drowsiness. Having said that, sometimes ppl find that Bonine doesn't work for them but I took it for a catamaran dinner cruise that was almost canceled due to rough seas and was absolutely fine).
About the back wing, meh, forget about it. You nailed focus, that's the priority. Aggressively crop to focus on the catch, reinforcing all the more the focal point of the image. :)
@shesnapped Yes. Not necessarily utterly completely, but aggressively such that it is clearly intentional...I'm sure it would take some experimentation. Thought being, don't be afraid to aggressively crop if it will ultimately strengthen the image. I had a photo of really cool water fountain with a artistic sculpture. Several years ago I showed it to a professional photographer I admire and said, "My eye tells me there's an interesting image here but I can't see it". In 5 seconds he cropped it down to maybe 1/4 original size and wham...there it was. That's what I had in mind when I made that comment. But definitely take it with a few thousand grains of salt.
