The blooms are out early so I went to work at one of my favorite trees – a crab apple. The white flowers and cool green leaves offer a great setting for bird imagery, especially cardinals. Male or female, they both provide a vibrant contrast to the simple color palette of the blooming crab apple. The situation is not unlike when I work with cardinals in the winter, except during the spring my source of white is the flowers and not the snow that would otherwise be blanketing the tree.
The light was a bright overcast which is what I wanted when working with a long lens and a small aperture. Still, my shutter speeds were rather slow (1/60th sec. or so) and I was focusing manually. This meant that I needed to know where I wanted my subject to be and pre-focus on that location, lock in my composition, and stabilize the camera-lens combo.
I love the cardinal’s sharp features, warm tones and relatively large size (for a song bird anyway). This image will be made available as a print (7″x10″ and matted to 11×14) for $47.00
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thanks for celebrating the beauty of the female Cardinal, so often over-looked
Paul, I love your generosity. By sharing some of your process and, more important, your thoughts on your subject and composition, we can better understand the complexity of the image and appreciate it more fully.
Beautiful bird, beautiful picture! The Cardinal’s color really stands out. The camera didn’t do it but the eye of the photographer. Good job!