Learning to fly

One of the motivations for going for a walk is to try and be there at the moment when nature surprises you and you're least expecting it.  I've never yet been for a walk at the Fen and not been surprised by something, however small or seemingly inconsequential.

One of the challenges is trying to photograph that moment when you give yourself only about three quarters of an hour.  As the season unfurls I can push the alarm back - yes I know I'm a bit odd - but I can't wait till I can get up at 5am and take my time.

One of the surprising parts is downloading photos.  I never expect to have captured the photo I saw in my mind's eye, and the vast majority of the time reality matches expectation.  But as the title of this post suggests, my version of learning to fly is about what to do with those hundreds - thousands? - of images, both jpeg and RAW, that I download and leave.  Quite apart from the memory they consume, I need to look at them afresh to learn how I can do it better next time.

In the field it's all about seeing and shooting - images, not rounds - I'll save those for the grey squirrels (sorry chaps).  I know what I want to photograph, and I think I know how, but with the best will in the world I simply don't have time to plan much.

So tonight I've sat down and looked again at an image I took yesterday.  The barn owl had turned in front of the wood and came back towards me.  Without the benefit of spot metering I was using centre-weighted, and with a white object on a dark background at ISO 800 it didn't strike me as an image worth playing with.  Still, I'd deleted the other ten or so on the card and saved this RAW and the one I posted yesterday - the one that could have been. 

I've got Adobe Photoshop Elements, and I bought the idiot's guide to using it, but somehow it just doesn't float my boat.  I'm just not that into post-processing.  Yet.  Instead I'm playing with Picasa 3 as it lets you download RAW and preview them.

So I pulled up the flying barn owl, tweaked a few sliders, and saved the jpeg.  And you know what?  It sort of works.  Sort of. (click to enlarge)

I'm still not sure about the blurred wings, and it's a noisy image having been taken at a high ISO, but there's just enough detail in the white to make out the fawn colour surrounding the heart-shaped face.

I saw him again this morning, this time in the field by the sluice.  I tried getting into position in the undergrowth at the edge to get a better shot, but 15 stone and size twelves on frosty reeds tend to create rather a lot of noise.  I let him go this morning.

The geese are becoming more active each day.  Three of them honked their way down to the water just before sunrise.  The photo's wrong in so many ways, yet the feeling of cold, morning light seems to come across.  The pink hue in the sky, the still reeds with jack frost, and the sun just about to break cover.

It makes me feel cold just looking at it.  Lovely.

And then, even though I had to get home, the sun started to break through the trees.  A 420mm telephoto doesn't really lend itself to landscapes, so I tried to think of a different way of capturing it.  All I wanted was one of the reed buntings to hop up to the top of a stem rather than hide away lower down, and I'd have given Niall Benvie a run for his money.  Or not as the case may be.

Instead I settled for a sunrise, one of those spritual, life-affirming moments where you feel that the day is yours to shape as you wish.

Learning to fly.

At first you fall to the ground.

With trial and error you take off, however ungracefully.

Eventually you get the hang of it.

One day.

Maybe.