![\"american](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/american-white-pelican-5683b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSometimes we have very personal reasons for liking an image and those types of\u00a0photographs don’t always work well\u00a0for everyone. In fact they seldom do and I\u00a0suspect this one\u00a0might be a case in point.<\/p>\n
Three days ago I was watching a group of pelicans from my pickup\u00a0at the entrance to Bear River MBR when good friends and bird photographers Sterling Sanders and Larry Muench drove up next to me. They got out of their vehicle and came over to chat\u00a0which I really enjoyed because I hadn’t seen them in some time. During the conversation I noticed that one of the pelicans had left the group and was swimming against a very dark background\u00a0(it was only a few minutes after dawn)\u00a0so I stuck my lens out the window, quickly popped off four shots of the bird (without even checking my camera settings, thus the exorbitant shutter speed), and then went back to the gabfest. I forgot\u00a0I even took those shots until yesterday when I began culling the images.<\/p>\n
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1\/6400, f\/6.3, ISO 800, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF 500mm f\/4L IS II USM + 1.4 tc, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n This is one of them. The pelican wasn’t particularly close but I like the soft light on the bird at dawn against the dark, almost black background. As soon as I saw the\u00a0images that background made me think of another nature photographer whose work I\u00a0admire very much\u00a0– Ronnie Gaubert<\/a>.<\/p>\n I “knew” Ronnie through Nature Photographers Network (NPN), an online photo critique forum that I was long active in. Ronnie photographed in the swamps of Louisiana so\u00a0some of his images that I most admired\u00a0were dark and moody\u00a0from the deep shadows of the bayous. Even though I’m an early morning shooter, here in the high desert\u00a0I seldom get those deep shadows in my\u00a0backgrounds so this\u00a0pelican image immediately reminded me of Ronnie. Though I never actually\u00a0met the man, through his interactions with me and many others I could tell he was a kind and modest\u00a0soul who freely offered valuable advice to the cadre of\u00a0largely novice and intermediate\u00a0photographers on NPN. And\u00a0man, was he ever a gifted nature photographer!<\/p>\n Sadly, Ronnie passed away almost exactly five years ago after a battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease).\u00a0But he left a rich legacy and\u00a0some\u00a0of his work can be seen here<\/a> if you have the interest. Just click on the thumbnails for larger views.<\/p>\n