Hummingbirds all winter? Man I love Seattle

Growing up in Minnesota, I can honestly say for the first 36 years of my life, I never saw a hummingbird from fall to spring. I still find it hard to believe that here in Seattle we have a yard full of incredibly active Anna's hummingbirds all winter long. We have to pull in the hummingbird feeders every night so the syrup does not freeze, then put them out before dawn as the little Anna's start coming just after first light.

300mm Nikkor, f/4, 1/80, ISO250

This shot is the first of many shots to come from a new home bird-feeder-photo-blind setup I have been putting together. I emptied out the spare bedroom that had been abandoned to storage, hung fresh feeders outside the window, removed the screen, adapted a cloth cover with a hole to shoot threw, cut pipe insulating foam to line the metal window frame and sill so I can rest the lens barrel against it for stability, and there you go.

This is the first time out of hundreds of shots of these little hummers that I was able to capture the little patch under it's chin (called a gorget)lighting up red.

The wrong side of the tracks

This is just North of the Seattle downtown waterfront. I had a couple hours to kill and went wandering with the camera...one of my favorite pastimes. I just spend time shifting my attention to see what is fascinating or beautiful in the very ordinary.

Ever since seeing an amazing triptych of Uta Barth's photographs at the Henry Art Gallery, I have been intrigued with limited and selective focus. More on this in the

Typically the thing most of us do to draw the viewer to our subject is throw the background out of focus. I am finding it interesting to go beyond this, picking and choosing varied elements to have in or out of focus.

When I look around without a camera, my focus is dynamic, changing all the time. Even if I am looking at a subject (say a bird in a tree), my attention will flit to the branch it is sitting, then back to the birds eye, etc.

In a photograph the focus is static, but by choosing which elements to focus on, it seems to give more presence to the picture, making me feel I am standing right there.

This picture looking through the fence makes me feel I am leaning against the fence. It almost makes me want to squint to focus.

This can be effective in ways that aren't intuitive. I normally want one eye of a animal or person in perfect focus. I am learning that breaking this rule can a more effective portrait. Keep in mind that a portrait to me is intended to capture a part of who a person is, not just a forensic record.

This image below of Cheyenne shows more character and has a closer presence (IMO) than it would had I focused on her eye.

Cheyenne in High Relief

Cheyenne is the first dog that I have shared my life with. She is a dear friend, truly beautiful, and has me pretty much wrapped around her dainty little paws.

Photo info: This is an available light shot. I almost never shoot high ISO. It's one of those things that went from a general guideline to an over-rigid rule in my shooting. So to counter that trend I cranked up the ISO to 1600, opened to f/2 for really shallow depth-of-field and dialed +2/3 exposure compensation while spot metering her right eye in aperture priority thereby allowing the surrounding highlights to blow. Sure, many shots were unacceptably blurry or noisy, but a few were beautiful to me. This high relief radiant look is how Cheyenne always looks in my heart and it captures her well.

The high ISO schtick seems to get unobtrusive shots that are otherwise impossible to capture under available-light conditions, (and that never seem to happen when blasting away with strobes.)