Thinking Bird

I managed to get out for a short wander today with Bex; we decided to go out around our local area. We didn’t have very much time so I didn’t take many photos; most of today’s photos were of birds. A particular bird had landed on a small wall around ten feet away from where I was sitting. It stood still for a lengthy amount of time. So I had plenty of time to compose the photo and to take the shot.

For this photo I had the camera in shutter priority and a shutter speed of 1/500^th of a second, this was adequate to freeze the movement of the bird and to allow for camera shake. I also preset the ISO to 400 to ensure that a moderate aperture was chosen by the camera. The camera selected an aperture of F8. As the bird was looking to my left I decided to keep the bird in the right hand side of frame, as this creates a pleasing composition; I like how the bird looks like it is thinking while perched on the wall.

To edit the photo I lowered the overall brightness as the photo had become over-exposed. I also increased the shadows so that the exposure was even throughout the whole photo. I didn’t change anything else as I was happy with how the camera had reproduced the colours.

I’m glad that Bex and I got a chance to go out for a photography wander today. The weather was really good with bright clear skies; they created some tough exposures but the extra challenge was good fun.

Mat