Tag Archives: Joe Overstreet Road

Isolation

Merritt Island NWR, Osceola County, Technique, , , , , , , , , ,

Anyone can snap a photo.  As photographers, we choose subjects and then compose frames around them so a viewer’s eyes are drawn to what we want them to see.  One thing to think about when we’re out with our cameras is how to isolate the subjects in our images.

Scan the scene when shooting – look for distracting elements and get rid of them.  How?  Sometimes you can’t, but here are some suggestions.

Viewpoint:  Shift a few feet one way or another to hide things.  There’s a much less attractive mailbox just out of the frame below on the left.

A Mailbox on Joe Overstreet RoadA Mailbox on Joe Overstreet Road

Magnification:  We never have enough zoom, do we?  Use what you do have to get close and separate subjects from clutter.  You can also crop later on the computer, but you’ll risk losing some image quality / resolution.

A good morning for a songA good morning for a song – singing Eastern Meadowlark. Joe Overstreet Road

Light:  Sometimes the light is just right to make your subject stand out from the background – take advantage of it!  This can be modified a bit in post processing too.

Shy birdShy bird – A Roseate Spoonbill in the light. Black Point Wildlife Drive

Depth of Field (DOF):  In addition to getting as close as you can and using a long focal length, shooting with a wide open aperture creates a shallower DOF and blurs the background behind your subject.  You may need to shift your position a bit to insure that the entire subject (e.g. both the insect and the bird) are in the plane of focus.

Butcher BirdButcher Bird – Loggerhead Shrikes often kill prey by impaling them on a thorn or barbed wire.  Joe Overstreet Road

Color:  Catching your subject against a contrasting color can help it stand out.  These American White Pelicans with their yellow beaks were very nice to pose for me in the blue water.

American White Pelicans
American White Pelicans. Black Point Wildlife Drive

So that’s a few ideas. If you think about this when you’re out, your photos will improve. Do you have any other suggestions?  Feel free to add them in the comments.

And speaking of isolation, Lynn and I are both generally in good health (thankfully!).  But the CDC says we’re at higher risk from the COVID-19 virus due to our ages.  We’re going to follow their recommendations and stay up to date on developments.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go out, stay safe – and make some photos!

©2020, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Chizzywinks!

Osceola County, , , , , ,

Kevin M. asked me on Friday if I wanted to go photographing Saturday.  I’d just been to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge that morning, but Lynn and I didn’t have anything planned so it sounded like a good idea to me!  I told him to pick a spot and he wanted to go  down to Osceola County / Joe Overstreet Road.

We’d already had a very nice trip – trying to find Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers at Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area, checking the Bald Eagle nest and finding the Scissor-tailed Flycatchers again on Joe Overstreet – among other things.  As we got close to the lake, we started to notice a lot of Tree Swallows.

Tree Swallow TrioTree Swallow Trio

These birds are winter migrants in our area and breed as far north as Alaska.  We’re used to seeing them here but as we got closer to the lake, we’d never seen them like this.

Tree SwallowsTree Swallow Swarm

There were thousands – maybe tens of thousands (?) of the birds in the fields and areas close to the lake.  They were madly flying around chasing something.  Eventually we got close enough to notice the hoards of blind mosquitoes they were after.  Here’s one of those that got inside the car.

Chizzywink

These aren’t really mosquitoes and they don’t bite, although they were thick enough to be bothersome (for us, not the Swallows).  Actually, I don’t think they’re blind either!  We stopped by the store at the landing and I asked the young lady running it about all the birds.   She told us that when the chizzywinks show up, it’s not uncommon for large groups of birds to go after them.  I’ll say!  I’d never heard them called that and had to ask her to repeat it so I could make a note and look up the word.

If you’ve ever seen or tried to photograph Tree Swallows, you know how energetic / erratic their flight is.  Going after the flies was definitely a high energy task and we also saw them congregating on some nearby wires to rest between servings of their chizzywinks happy meals.

Resting Tree SwallowsResting Tree Swallows

Photographing Tree Swallows is usually hard because it’s difficult to keep them in the frame.  Photographing this spectacle was hard too,  but it wasn’t because we couldn’t keep them in the frame – they were literally wherever we pointed our cameras.  It was just that it was so chaotic that I was never sure what I was capturing. and I was worried about depth of field and motion blur.  There was plenty of light, so I ended up stopping down and making sure my ISO was high enough to get a fast shutter speed.  This frame is my favorite:

Chizzywinks and swallowsChizzywinks and swallows

Something like this is why I really like photography.  It gets me up and out of the house and every once in a while, I see something amazing that I’ve never seen before.  And if I can figure out how to photograph it, I can share it with people too.  Fun!

Also, I occasionally learn a new word!

My video skills are not the best and this is a bit jumpy with a lot of wind noise, but here’s a ~20 second recording of this:

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go out and explore nature.  You may see something amazing – and make some interesting photos!

©2020, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved

Osceola Wander

INSIDE FLORIDA, Osceola County, , , , , , , , ,

Kevin M. organized a Photography Interest Group expedition yesterday.   I went along with  Kevin K., and Frank B.  The four of us were up extremely early to beat the sun to this pasture in Osceola County along Canoe Creek Road.

The sky was kind of plain when we arrived, except for the very thin moon rising ahead of the sun, and the ground fog over the grass in the distance.

Sliver moon and mistSliver moon and mist

After photographing there we moved on to Joe Overstreet Road and then Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area to see what we could see.

There’s a photography joke:

Q: Why did the bird cross the road?

A: To get to the bad light.

I don’t know about you, but this often happens to me when I’m trying to make photos of birds.  And if they don’t hurry into the bad light, then they usually turn away from the camera.  The backs of birds are not as photogenic as the front.  Yesterday the birds were a little slow and we managed to catch some of them in very good light and not facing away!

Into the lightInto the light

I wish I hadn’t been framed so close on this Bald Eagle.  I would have loved to catch it in full flight.  They’re seen down there often, so I’ll have to try again.

The meadows along the roads were full of Eastern Meadowlarks.  And when we couldn’t see them we could definitely hear them.

Morning songMorning song

There were signs posted at the Three Lakes Wildlife Management Area with results from recent hunts. And the deer we saw were definitely very wary. These two stared at us for a while before running off into the trees.

Two wary deerTwo wary deer

All in all, it was a good day for photography.  And the banter in the car was quite entertaining too.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Now – go make some photos!

©2015, Ed Rosack. All rights reserved.