It's odd to calculate what missing 75% of 2020 did to me. I'm having some fun speed living 2018 and 2019 air shows through my photos. Some of those folders have literally hundreds of shots. Many of them are burst sequences. I don't save everything, but I do save more than I should. It's OK - I can still remember the stories around them. If I could only figure out how to get that burnt AV gas to spritz out of each shot - or get the noise. I can neither confirm or deny that sometimes late at night there are Youtube video sounds of airshows or C5 T and Gs that can be heard coming from the office.
As I think of my upcoming annual trek to SC and getting warm again I go back to 2019. Yep, my annual trek that I've been going on for 1 years now. And a one year reset in 2020. A couple of weeks now if the CDC doesn't put on a travel ban. Or a new strain doesn't show up on the SC shoreline.
Speaking of Youtube, I started following a photographer out of Florida. Phenomenal bird shots. He does a lot of videos as well - he's out there. He seems to focus on the big predatory water birds. I'm trying to figure out how he makes a living doing this. I looked up his web site and he takes people out to photograph birds. I saw what he charges for four hours. I need to move to the shore. Retirement job. But I'd pay his charges to get the lay of the land, and the bird shots.
So all this preamble leads up to this. A water based bird in 2019, in a photograph. So in 2019 I spent a day in Charleston, dockside. To a rookie northerner, birds everywhere. Now that I think about, they were the common scavengers, or beggars. The birds I saw were working the tourists, not working nature. Not that I'm complaining, you have to work you're way up. So this year, I'll do better.
But back to 2019. Charleston. Walking the docks. I had no idea what this bird was. But he/she/it was on a piling. Watching tourists passing by. Scanning everyone for food. Until I showed up. This bird didn't flinch. I was less than six feet away. And stuck a camera lens even closer.
Photography-wise, this appears a bit soft to me. Trying to figure out why. The combo in use here is a D7200 and DX 18-200 lens. It was a backup for the day. This takes me back to where my first shots with the 70-300 full frame just blew me away and the difference from the DX lens. I'm going with that. The eye is sharp. Maybe it is just a fuzzy bird.
Yea, how exciting is just standing around? Not much. But it is part of the journey - and in 2019 I thought this was pretty good. Also in 2021 half the fun is trying to figure out what this was. I am building a decent list of websites to help me with bird identifications. And that is part of the learning journey as well.
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