I am going slowly through my Photowalk pictures. It seems I took some interesting images after all. Good, that I have time till next Saturday to pick my one favorite, looks like my top favorite while shooting might not end up being send for the contest .
Meantime, one of the images I like a lot, but probably will not end up being send out. What I enjoy about this image is the line of street lamp, and a lot of negative space which make the image simple and at the same time, draw the eye where I want it- to the birds. And the fact that although each has its own pose, all pigeons are turned at the same direction, making the image… organized.
I took the series of bracketed exposures hoping to put them into HDR image to show all the nuances of shades in the feather detail in the birds. I also hoped for some detail in the sky, but in this moment it was evenly clouded . But even with high ISO, the shutter speed and burst mode where not enough to freeze the unsettled birds. Not to abandon the idea completely, I use the single-image pseudo HDR. This image is a natural B&W .

I was sightseeing some yesterday in the town of Czestochowa in South-Central Poland. One of the places I spend couple of hours was a very well known catholic monastery, where I took a number of pictures. I am planning to talk about that place when I post those. Today’s blog image was taken outside, on the entrance sidewalk. The place is very busy every time of a day, every day, so the birds are very used to people and not easily scared. I was able to walk quite close to this one. It was observing me, all right, but probably looking more if I will give it any food then expecting troubles. Notice the colorful spots on its neck- I really like them.

This is an image of, I think, a bird called common kestrel, or Falco tinnunculus, simply pustulka in Polish. It was a challenge to identify it, so if I made a mistake, let me know!
I took it last weekend in Szczeliniec, while we were hiking in the beautiful area of Table Mountains (Gory Stolowe). I was busy photographing the panoramic view from one of the viewing areas, when somebody noticed this bird, flying to his nest in the rock. I turned and snapped this image quickly, so I am rather surprised how well it turned. It was shod in the middle of the day in really sunny weather. But with a basic post processing, I was able to make the bird the lightest object on the image, and stand out from all the green trees. I also love how the trees went blurry, when I zoomed the lens to its max 200 mm. With a longer lens (or cropping) I might have made a bird more pronounced on this image, but I like this as an environmental shot. See, if you can spot its nest a little lower and to the right of the bird.

This peacock, called Kubus, leaves in a botanical garden in Walbrzych, South-Western Poland. He was actually a very funny bird, because when you called him by his name, he would spread his beautiful tail and start posing to the pictures! His handler was a very pleasant person as well, as he invited us outside the glass house where peacock resides, to his outdoors aviary, and take some pictures through bigger crate (so that you can put lens through, without tricks to make it disappear). Unfotunately, the grey concrete wall was not a perfect backdrop, and I am glad I gave up the whole body shots and went for close-up. They give justice to beautiful colors of Kubus’ tail.

My dog, Viking, just like my cat, Ace, although both are different nationality, if you can say it about a pet, have one thing in common. They just hate me trying to catch a picture of them. I was very lucky to catch Viking sitting calm, on the uniform background of the wall of the house, and was able to take several nice portrait photos of him. I thought that making it black and white will put the accent on the dog, as he fur is yellowish, and the wall was really bright orange.

I spend most of weekend preparing photograph for submission to the Iowa State Fair Photo Salon. Sounds serious, doesn’t it . I was far more into contests last year, I guess this year more time goes into stock submissions. The thing is, these are different criteria to pick images. In any case, it made me to browse through last years images, and I discovered at least one real good one not featured on the blog yet . This photo of bald eagle was taken in Toledo Zoo.

There was a discussion provoking post on DigitalProTalk last week on fast lenses. I added the comment there, but I though writing a post on my thoughts and recent experience is a good idea.
Basically, I think fast lenses are not a best idea for beginners not only because of cost of the lens, but also technical difficulty of shooting at f/1.4. Yes, the results are stunning. And yes, of course you can buy decently priced fast prime lens, like I bought mine 30 mm f/1.4 (for cropped sensor Nikon D300). It allows me to shoot without flash in low light situation with a reasonable shutter speed to get acceptable sharp images. But, at least at first, only in theory. I took me almost half of a year and several completely ruined photo shoots to be able to go that low with aperture. And the problem is incredibly shallow depth of field. Working with it requires some experience and paying attention to what is in focus and already out of focus in the frame. It is like with Lensbaby, takes time and practice, so it is not for beginners by definition .
And, since I already practice and practice some more with my fast lens, I could get this nice portrait of my cat Ace, sitting on my recliner. Without making him run away from the flash. With shallow depth of field, at f/1.4. And the eyes are sharp. And that’s about it .

The last winter images, hopefully. The snow is gone, but we still have the bird feeder out and full. We bought this winter different type of seeds than usual, and it brought different, more sophisticated bird species to it, but they also were less hungry or there was less of them. We put it out, needed to refill it two months later, and more then half of it is still there. For taking.

In my tradition, the Christmas Eve supper is the time when the holidays start. So we have been cooking since morning, getting traditional dishes ready for a huge meal. I took a break to photograph Christmas tree, and poinsettia, and all the decorations, when Ace decided to play with me and the camera for this nice Christmas photo.

I was walking in no particular direction, just getting to know the city, when I stumbled upon a bunch of squirrels in Union Square Park. They were rather interested in me, and although watched me carefully, they were not afraid of me or my camera and let me come rather close.