{"id":2442,"date":"2020-04-29T17:47:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-29T23:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irenenorth.com\/writings\/?p=2442"},"modified":"2024-04-22T02:46:08","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T02:46:08","slug":"the-only-way-to-soar-is-to-believe-you-can-fly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/2020\/04\/29\/the-only-way-to-soar-is-to-believe-you-can-fly\/","title":{"rendered":"The only way to soar is to believe you can fly"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A mule deer runs around the back of the Scotts Bluff National Monument in the late afternoon.<\/p><\/div>\n

One thing I wanted to work on in 2020 was becoming a better photographer. I’m an okay one right now. I know I can get better. It takes practice, thought about how to frame your picture and why you are taking the picture, and some more practice.<\/p>\n

The following pictures are some examples of my work. I tried to convey what I was thinking and whether I succeeded or failed. I still have a lot of practicing to do.<\/p>\n

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It is difficult to photograph great horned owl babies. I wanted to get as much of their environment as possible and also hope to to get them in focus. There are a lot of limbs around them, which creates challenges.<\/p><\/div>\n

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This photo turned out almost as exactly as I wanted it. When you zoom in, the feathers on this hawk aren’t as clear as I’d like them to be, but I also have to remember the limitations of my own camera as well as myself at the moment.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Although I have a series of photos of the hawk taking flight, I think this one turned out the best.<\/p><\/div>\n

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After returning home, I decided to play a little bit with darker settings. Low light photographs are still difficult for me. I practiced on my cats. This picture of Puck turned out well. It took a while to get to this point, but my settings were 1\/50 sec; f\/5.6; ISO 400.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Puck is so photogenic. I had to stick a second one in here of him.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Inside our a\/c unit on the second floor is a bird’s nest. Paul and I decided to leave it alone. I tried several shots before the bird flew away. This was the best one. It’s a crap photograph, but it also shows I’m still learning and trying to figure out how to make this photograph better. I ended up switching off of manual and to aperture priority. You can see a little bit of the blue on the bird. I got a little frustrated because I couldn’t work out what I needed to do to make photograph show the color of the bird. It was good the bird flew away because I really needed to stop before I got too angry. I’ll keep working at it and get a better shot one day.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Almost everything turned out perfect here. On a day where most of my pictures were crap, this one made me smile.<\/p><\/div>\n

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It was a windy evening when I came across this rabbit in the Oregon Trail Memorial Cemetery. I hope to be able to compensate for the wind in the future so it isn’t so evident on the rabbit’s fur. I am grateful that this rabbit continued to eat while watching me and letting me get so close to take pictures. As I practice, I expect to be able to have clearer shots of rabbits, even when they don’t let me get close to them.<\/p><\/div>\n

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My goal here was to have the single leaf be the only thing in focus. In that respect, I failed. I still got the leaf and you can see all its veins, but the overall goal of what I was trying to do didn’t quite work out. I also tried to get the leaf and branch in total focus, but that one failed spectacularly.<\/p><\/div>\n

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While out walking a part of the Oregon-California Trail through Robidoux Pass, I was struck by the juxtaposition of the current cow trail to the dirt road and how they appear to run into each other. There isn’t much of a lesson here for me. I just saw something, went, “huh” and took a picture of it.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Well, I got the wings. A moment before the bird was sitting on a branch. There isn’t much I can do when it decided to fly through the branches.<\/p><\/div>\n

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This is another shot of the great horned owl chilling in its nest. I was pleased with the opportunity to get a clear picture of the owl’s face when it was not blocked by the small branches.<\/p><\/div>\n

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On this day, the babies were alone, so I grabbed a couple of quick shots. I won’t be taking any more. They deserve to grow some more and learn how to be on their own. I will learn how to take better action shots with other fast animals around the Panhandle.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Mama great horned owl was a little ways down the road from her babies when I arrived this morning. She was keeping a hawk distracted and away from her nest.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The owl came to rest on a tree and watched the hawk for several moments before taking off into a nearby field. It swooped up and down as the hawk chased the owl. The went down low in a field before the owl rose up and flew straight toward its nest. The owl rest back in the nest, protecting its babies as the hawk flew south, rising in ever-growing circles as it eventually disappeared into the southern sky. The owl had won the battle this day. I hope to see its babies flying high later this summer.<\/p><\/div>\n

Looking at the last two photographs, it is clear I have some work to do. While the photo of the owl flying is not a terrible picture, there is plenty of room for improvement. These two photographs were taken moments apart. My brain still doesn’t shift correctly to remember I need to change the settings for the next shot. As a result, the last photograph is overexposed in the bright, Nebraska sun. I’ll get there. I just need more practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing I wanted to work on in 2020 was becoming a better photographer. I’m an okay one right now. I know I can get better. It takes practice, thought about how to frame your picture and why you are taking the picture, and some more practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[167,175,254,276,391,398],"class_list":["post-2442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos","tag-great-horned-owl","tag-hawk","tag-nebraska","tag-photos","tag-vulture","tag-wildlife"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2442"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3671,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2442\/revisions\/3671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irenenorth.com\/writings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}