For a brief moment, we connected, his eyes looking through my lens as I captured his expression. He studied me as I studied him.
Photographing birds is a challenge, but every once in a while you’re there at the right moment and capture something unexpected. I saw this osprey hovering and circling around as he was hunting. Knowing where he was likely to dive, I put myself in position and pointed my camera up. Just at that moment he looked down at me and gave me this look saying “I see you”.
I am not sure which of the two alligator photos I prefer. I love the intense concentration on the face of this alligator here.
I almost did not post this as I felt there was quite a bit of cross over between the two images in terms of subject and mood. That said, I like this image the more I look at it.
So, normally, I don’t use a flash. I just find I don’t need one, or can’t use one, for most of what I shoot. Have you ever tried lighting an entire building or the interior of a convention center with a flash?
On a typical day, you’ll see me running around with a canon 17-40L mounted on my 50D, my 70-200 sitting in small lowpro bag, my tripod on my shoulder, and the flash at home. For some reason, however, I decided to bring my flash with me as I left the house in the am – which was, again, odd as I wasn’t shooting until the evening and my plan was to shoot the interior of a hotel (can’t say the name because I haven’t gotten the approval to go shoot there yet).
Since I didn’t get the go-ahead for the interior shoot, I decided to head to the lake near my home and see if I could see some gators. Even though I live in Florida, I’ve never seen one at this lake.
Look what I found! This little guy sat there for about an hour as I got shot after shot of him as the sun was setting down. In a full reversal of my typical pattern, I used my 70-200 with the flash and no tripod.
I used the flash to get a little more color than you typically since from a gator in the water. Glad I packed it! Sometimes it’s good to overpack 🙂
I photographed these two doves in Jerusalem back in 2008 near the Temple Mount during an excursion the Bethlehem Christmas Project team took the Old City. I only managed two frames before they flew away.
Today’s Photo is an sweet moment between a mother elephant and her calf. I captured this while on the move on a safari at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. Lens here was a 70-200 2.8L; Post-processing was done using photomatix (single raw) and Topaz Adjust.
As I’ve been working to prepare for the the The Bethlehem Christmas Project, I started thinking of some of the images I have collected over the years during my time on the ground. Some of them are poignant and some are whimsical like this one. I plan on posting a few here and there as we get closer to December.
The one you see here is of a camel at the Caves of Qumran (the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found). At the time, I was shooting with a Rebel XTI and an EF 75-300 lens – that lens died on that trip. This is one of the last images I was able to shoot with it.
By the way, if you can zoom in, you will see flies on the camel and buzzing around him. The downsizing for getting this on the web obscures them to a certain degree, but they are there.
This is not a technically brilliant photo, but it makes me laugh everytime I look at it. I cracked up the entire time while working on this. Incidentally, if you want to learn about the Grey Crowend Crane, visit the International Crane Foundation here: http://www.savingcranes.org/grey-crowned-crane.html
© Copyright Ali Elhajj 2014-2020
