{"id":111145,"date":"2022-05-15T04:18:48","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T10:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=111145"},"modified":"2022-05-15T12:19:20","modified_gmt":"2022-05-15T18:19:20","slug":"black-billed-magpie-portrait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2022\/05\/15\/black-billed-magpie-portrait\/","title":{"rendered":"Black-billed Magpie Portrait"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I’ve ever been able to peer into the soul of a bird in one of my photos, this is that photo.<\/p>\n

But it won’t be for everyone. Some folks just don’t like head shots very much. They’d prefer to see the entire bird and I understand that. Sometimes I feel that way too, but not this time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

1\/4000, f\/6.3, ISO 640, Canon R5, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/em><\/p>\n

Five days ago on Antelope Island this female (based on behavior) Black-billed Magpie surprised me a great deal when she landed on top of a sagebrush that was just a few feet away from my lens that was already sticking out of my pickup window. Magpies, normally known for their wariness, just don’t get that close – not very often anyway. She must have been within an inch or two of the minimum focusing distance of my lens. She was so close the only things that were sharp in this photo were her head and upper neck. She’s twisted her body so that’s her rump in the background below her ‘chin’ – notice how soft it is.<\/p>\n

Her head is so sharp I had reduce my normal sharpening routine by 50% because otherwise I thought the photo looked over-sharpened. Normally I never see even a hint of iridescence in the blacks of magpies but it looks to me like I might be seeing a tiny bit of it here, especially on top of her head.<\/p>\n

What I like most about the photo is its intimacy combined with all that detail. I swear I can see the intelligence and curiosity in her eye that corvids are so well known for. It makes me wonder what she might have been thinking as she peered at me so close inside my pickup and listened to the clicking of my shutter.<\/p>\n

I hope I’m not overthinking this photo but that’s where my mind takes me. Maybe it’s just because I like magpies so much.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If I’ve ever been able to peer into the soul of a bird in one of my photos, this is that photo.<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,334,363],"tags":[31,57,6337,137,4567,610,2929,1671,311],"class_list":["post-111145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-antelope-island","category-birds","category-black-billed-magpies","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-black-billed-magpie","tag-curiosity-and-intelligence","tag-female","tag-head-shot","tag-pica-hudsonia","tag-portrait","tag-sharpening","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/black-billed-magpie-0714-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-sUF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111145"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111177,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111145\/revisions\/111177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}