Winning photos from St. Mary's County Camera Club

I had several winning photos last week in March Camera Club competition.  There was a theme contest of close up and macro photography.  I had photos of flowers, but the subject didn't seem too creative.  I thought my photos had impact at least and I am very much into color, although black and white can be fun too with the right subject.  I really liked the color combination of the water lily.  Here are my winners. 

 First Place Macro-Exotic Purple Water Lily

 Second Place Macro-Sunflower and Bee

I also won first place in the advanced category in March for a photo from last year.  This owl had a damaged wing, couldn't fly, but did flap his/her wings.  An interesting fact about Long-Eared owls is that their ears are uneven, the left one is higher than the right.  This helps them locate their prey.  To learn more about Long-Eared Owls, visit http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/long-eared_owl/id

First Place Advanced-Long-Eared Owl

Red Cardinals

One of my most popular prints and Holiday cards uses a photo of a cardinal in snow taken in January of 2010.  So, each time we have a snow fall during the day, I take my camera out, hoping to get another great shot of a red cardinal.  I finally got a shot with a nice glow after the snow storm this week, even though this time you can't see the ice crystals on his face. 

Cardinal After Snow

I liked this one too, but it doesn't have the extra glow.

Here is the cardinal in Snow that is popular as a Holiday card and as a print taken in 2010.  The first and last photos are available for sale on Zazzle.com.

Honor photos from February Competition

Another eagle photo won 2nd place in last week's February competition in the St. Mary's County Camera Club.  I get so excited when I see more than one eagle out on the osprey nest!    I feel so lucky to be able to see them in the wild nearby.  Amazing!  I suppose my next challenge will be to catch both Mom, Dad and baby eagle in one photo.  The osprey will be showing up in a few weeks, so it gets less likely by the day.

I also won two honorable mentions one for Advanced and one for theme competition (long exposures).

St. Clement's Pier was taken on a gray day after a fair amount of rain.  We had planned to take the shuttle launch to the island to photograph the osprey, but it wasn't running due to the inclement weather.  I asked Jim to walk out on the pier to add a subject to the photo.  I liked the subtle light in the image.

My honorable mention for a long exposure was taken right after the Calvert Marine museum closed.  It is actually a composite of two photos.  The Cupola of the lighthouse needed a long exposure to show up in the darkness, but the moon was too bright and overexposed in the photo.  I took several moon photos with correct exposures at the time, hoping I could add them together.  We went to the museum hoping to photograph the lighthouse with the moon rising near it, but the two subjects were too far apart.  More advanced planning on our part would have told us where the moon would be.  The Photographer's Ephemeris or a similar app or program would have given us the information we needed in advance.  Live and learn!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I tried some long exposures last night only lit by two tiny portable spotlights.  I turned off the room lights and "sprayed" the subjects with light.  The dozen roses were placed on a piece of black velvet.  I also used the velvet to cover part of our keyboard to remove the words written on the plastic to simplify the image.  The velvet was used under the guitar also.

Bald Eagles in St. Mary's County

I've been seeing a lot of bald eagles lately.  They are bolder in the winter when the ospreys aren't around.  I suspect that there is a family of three eagles.  There is an immature brown and white eagle and two adult bald eagles.  I rarely see all three of them at once.  This week I mostly photographed one adult eagle sitting on the osprey nest, having breakfast.  The other eagles were flying around, and the one on the nest was squawking at them.  They never seem to visit when the light is good and early in the morning, but I dutifully photograph them anyway.  The sky and the water were somewhat gray on this particular day. 

January!  After being inside a little too much lately, I decided to use the  ”Birding in Southern Maryland” brochure by the Southern Maryland Audubon Society to get out of the house and check out some local birds.  I got a copy of the brochure from the St. Mary’s County Department of Tourism and I also included the online link.  I armed myself with my new Sigma 150-500 mm lens and my Nikon D600.  The brochure turned out to be accurate.  The information in the brochure took me to a nearby swampy farming area not far from the water.  I quickly saw a bald eagle before I could pull out my camera.  I later spotted a great blue heron in a field, lots of bluebirds sitting on a wire and three European Starlings sharing some branches.

If you want to try birding, I can recommend the brochure.

Great Blue Heron Portrait Session.

After the osprey leave our nearby nest, other birds such as bald eagles and great blue herons often visit to look around and “play” in a borrowed nest.  I wanted to share a sequence of photos of this great blue heron. It was feeling lively on the particular day I photographed and I was thrilled with the various poses that resulted.  It was almost like having a family portrait session. Now let me see your right profile, your left profile and please lift your right leg, thank you!   I was glad I had the patience to wait for all of the ways it moved.   Now if only I could do it again with a longer lens.  These are all heavily cropped from the originals.

This last photo was taken on another day when it was windy, but I think it is the same heron posing.