Plus a bonus image, what I think is a pretty spectacular “flip side.”
Confession time:
For over a decade this bird photographer kept up with his image culling. I bordered on anal about keeping it current. But almost exactly two years ago when health issues involving my back and legs began to make sitting at my computer uncomfortable and often painful I mostly quit doing it which resulted in a huge photo backlog. It was intimidating and depressing so I continued to ignore it and let it slide.
Two days ago I realized that the next time I went shooting I’d have over 100,000 photos that I’d never culled. I was determined to not let that happen so yesterday I spent a big chunk of the day culling over 3000 images which freed up 92.6 gigabytes of disc space. It’s a start.
An unexpected bonus: in all that garbage I’m finding a few interesting photos and even an occasional gem or two. I might not classify the following two photos, taken about 6 weeks ago, as outright “gems” but I think they’re at least interesting and they deserve to see the light of day.
1/4000, f/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in
This Northern Harrier at Bear River MBR was hunting the phrags near one of the canals when she suddenly turned toward me. While I was quickly reviewing that morning’s images later that day I never inspected it carefully because with her coming at me like this I assumed the bird was soft. She isn’t, she’s actually very sharp.
I like quite a few things about the image but my favorite is its depth. For me the three dimensional aspects of the image almost suggest that she’s about to pop right out of my screen and onto my lap.
1/4000, f/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS II USM + EF 1.4 III Extender, not baited, set up or called in
Six clicks later as she was hunting low and slow she turned her back to me. Normally I wouldn’t even be firing my shutter while she had her back to me but I thought this was such a neat display of her flared plumage I instinctively made an exception. I’m glad I did. I think the definition of virtually all of her remiges and retrices (flight feathers of the wings and tail) is pretty spectacular. Even her alulae can be seen clearly.
Normally I’m a fanatic about being able to see the eyes and here we can’t even see her head. But I still like the image. A lot.
Hopefully photos like these will encourage me to keep on chuggin’ away at my culling. I need motivation of some kind because doing it is a bona fide pain in the ass.
Ron
PS – Here in northern Utah we’re at the beginning of a snow dump. It started snowing hard during the night and it’s supposed to continue getting worse all day long. I made a 4:30 AM run this morning for supplies (poor planning on my part) and it was already a commuter’s nightmare out there. Many schools and universities are closed for all or part of the day and everyone’s being urged to stay home if at all possible. Based on what I saw at 4:30 I heartily concur. As hard is it is to believe the forecasters were actually right this time.
If any of you locals have no choice but to drive today BE SAFE! But stay home if you can.
Damn, I’m glad I’m retired!
Addendum at 9 AM: I just measured 14” of fresh powdery snow on my front lawn and it’s still coming down hard. It’s supposed to continue for most of the day. Hope my snow blower starts!
Woah, that is a lot of snow! Nothing like a big dump of snow to spend some time going through the old files.I like both shots for the detail on the feathers, am happy that they weren’t culled.
Thanks, Jane. Thankfully the snow has finally stopped and we should get some sun tomorrow. For one day before the next storm comes in.
Love those two shots !! Both of them !!
Here in Rhode Island we are experiencing a VERY warm winter. We have only had about three inches of snow all winter. There have been people out on the golf courses for the last two weeks. I am wondering how this will screw up the animal population around here. Are we going to have an explosion of squirrels soon. Food is abundant and they don’t have to dig for it. Feel free to send some of that snow East will Ya please !!
Thanks, Gary.
I’d love to get rid of some of it in my yard but I’m afraid we need every drop of the rest of it for the Great Salt Lake!
I just watched our 6:00 pm news and weather. They are saying your storm will arrive here later this week as rain !!!
Remarkable photos, Ron. Beautiful both coming and going; I’m really taken with the tail display.
Snowblower. Got one when I lived in Utah but, not to gloat, don’t need one here and got rid of it years ago. I still have the shovel but that’s really only for insurance.
I wonder if you could hire a neighborhood kid and train him to cull the really bad photos (not suggesting you have any). If I did that I reckon it would reduce my files by 95% or more🙂
Thanks, Lyle. I hired a neighborhood kid to cut my lawn last summer but he turned out to be not so “reliable”. But no one other than me, kid or otherwise, is getting near my delete key with my files on my screen… 🙂
The second shot it beautiful. I like the tail, how each white feather is prominent on top of the darker stripe.
Yep, just a little snow…… We have wind out of the canyon too.
I see you got about 14″ too. Thankfully it’s pretty calm here now but the wind was a pain while I was snow blowing.
I said the word, “Spectacular,” as soon as I saw the second shot and low and behold, so did you! 🙂 That is definitely one for the wall! It looks like a well-choreographed dance and is so striking!
Enjoy your snow (and I would have said get someone else to snowplow/shovel, but I see I’m too late). Take care of your back, my friend!
Looking forward to the next interesting nuggets that escape your trigger finger. 🙂
Thanks for your concern, Marty. Thankfully my back held up reasonably well. It’s only spitting snow now so hopefully I won’t have to do it again. But that’s probably just wishful thinking.
Hoping you can find someone who’s willing to trade some framed prints or photography lessons for doing your shoveling chores during the winter. If I lived closer, I know I’d be beating…er…shoveling a path to your door! 😉
Awe and wonder.
And delight.
I do hope that you are being judicious with your culling finger though, and was very glad to see the second shot. I am pretty certain that in some moods you would have hit delete without examining that one. Good luck with the huge job ahead. And stay safe and (shudders from me) warm.
EC, it’s hard to be judicious when you have 100K images to cull. I don’t want to die of old age at 99K…
At least the snow is “light” and not heavy/wet stuff. See S bound Monida pass is closed so storm goes N quite a ways…….
I just finished blowing and shoveling it. Now I’m not so convinced it was “light”. Good thing I got out there when I did though – it was almost as high as the top of my snow blower in-chute. In some places it was a little over the top.
Yikes!
The first one is a gem, and the second reminds me of the story of the headless horseman in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.
Thanks, Nancy. I see what you mean.
Great photos. I once had a Great Horned Owl fly straight at me in our backyard and wow, was that both exciting and intimidating!
I’m amazed at your ability to remember the context of all your photos. Do you keep a journal when you’re out photographing? Analog or digital? I find I can’t even remember what I had for dinner two days ago.
I hope you get back out into the field soon. Spring is coming (oh please oh please oh please).
Linda, I don’t keep a journal of any kind. But I can tell context by looking at the other photos in that series and the other photos I took that day. Time and date stamps on the images also help. And I often recognize the setting because I’ve been to most of those places many times. If it was a “special” bird in any way it’s seared into my memory. But occasionally, even with all those clues, I just draw a blank…
Oh Ron….that second shot gave me goose bumps. You “like it”, I Love it❗️
I get frustrated looking for a picture on my iPhone. I can only imagine what’s in your treasure chest😁
I keep going back to look at that second shot. I like it better each time. Thanks very much, Diana.
Love the white bustle. Stay safe you all.
Thanks, Martha. It’s getting worse here, fast.
Glad you took the time to dig these two out of your huge backlog. Really like Harrier photos and these two are very good. When I first looked at the first photo I did not fully appreciate it, but then going back and really looking at it you can see how sharp it is and the depth. I think in a frame it would really pop out. Beautiful. And love the fanned out plumage with the back shot. I have taken photos of them in that position, but never as good as this one. I can only imagine how many more treasurers are in that culling. Someday when you no longer can get out there you should work on putting together a book of your photos and publish it.
Nope, no book Everett. I can’t see that ever happening. Hell, I can’t even keep up with my culling… 🙂
Spectacular!!!!! I especially love the shot from behind- the position of her wings and how her tail fans out, showcasing that white stripe. And what a gorgeous shot against that background! You just significantly improved my Monday morning, Ron! 🙂
Glad to hear it, Emily. Monday mornings nearly always need improvement!
Absolutely stunning! 🙂 Just jaw dropping gorgeous to me! The lighting and detail on the harrier in both shots is beautiful! SO glad you found them and have a bit more motivation to continue your culling process! The ability to take a “kazillion” photos easily with digital does have it’s down side…. Glad you got stocked up – HATE getting caught off guard for big storms….. 🙁 Retirement IS a bonus when it comes to being able to stay home during rotten weather…. 🙂 No snow here but colder (14 vs. 54 of the other day) and less windy. Wind ripped our “weather station” off the post the other day in the wind so temp is as good as it gets for the moment.. 😉
Wow, there’s something ironic about wind taking out a weather station but if it could happen anywhere it would likely be Montana.
I don’t know if I’m “stocked up” but I now have everything I need to get through the day comfortably. It made me think of the planning my parents had to do when I was a little kid and we were living on the farm for the winter. Sometimes we’d be snowed in for a week or more 17 miles from town. Now that took some planning, especially with little kids in the family.
It DID take planning back then being remote and given the sometimes limited supply of things available “in town” at any given time. We’re “spoiled” that way……. 😉
One of my earliest memories of being snowed in out at the farm was when I was 4 or 5 years old and I dumped a bunch of Pablum down the sink. I have no idea why I did it but we needed that Pablum for my little sister Mona who was just an infant. Now we didn’t have any (or very little) and we were snowed in! It was a VERY big deal.
I was a little turd…
These are great! To be able to have an almost full head on with a catchlight visible is a dream photo, (for me at least). Your second photo displaying all the feather detail really is spectacular! Each layer neatly defined…nice. You found some great rewards with your culling…keep up the good work. It sounds like today may be a good day for you to continue. Yesterday was a full day of sunshine here…the first of it in nearly two full weeks. What a boost in spirits it provided.
Thank you, Kathy. I know how you feel about your day of sunshine. We had one on Saturday and it was… delicious!