Spring Approaches

It has been a very cold winter in the northeast U.S. this year. I have not been able to find the time to photograph much in the past few months. I guess as I get older I become less interested in braving cold weather for any length of time.

Recently we've been getting a few breaks in the weather, so I've gone out to a local nature center to see what birds are around. Now I'm not much of a "birder", in fact I know very little about birds. I can only recognize the most popular kinds of birds, but I enjoy photographing them nonetheless.

As many nature photographers well know there are a few minimum attributes to a good bird photograph, and these are two that I concentrate on:
- Sharpness, especially the eyes
- Uncluttered background

Of course exposure and composition are also important, as they always are.

Below is a photo in which the background is cluttered, but I like the lines and how the direction of the bird's body flows with the branches. Even the direction the bird is looking is along the line of biggest branch. Now you wouldn't necessarily think about these things if you were simply trying to enjoy this photo, but I think little things like these can either make or break a photo.