Abstract photography

All along my journey in the world of photography i love to look for the abstract around us. To search for colors, shapes, lines, textures and take them out of their context. The way i see it, its  taking control of your own environment, looking for borders around you and fitting them into the frame. Usually the kind of people attracted to this kind of art are control freaks, or totally the opposite i call them the "freestyle" photographers. As i know my self a bit i would consider myself rather from the first group.  

Macro photography

I love macro photography. It opens the door to a beautiful new world. You have to have some patience and sometimes its frustrating but i find that a good macro shot is worth the effort. For those who want to develop their lighting techniques its a very good practice, which later on will be very useful on bigger scenes.
My first macro shots where taken in natural light its possible and you can get very nice images that way, although your a bit limited depending only on the sunlight. I have no time right now to go into details about how it all works maybe later on i will write a post about the basics of macro photography.

Meanwhile i want to share with you the result of my latest macro shoot. The idea  to this image came up just because i found a few snails outside in the garden.  I thought it could be nice to experiment with them a bit and its never a bad idea to add another image to my ever growing  collection.

Woodpecker from my new hide

A woodpecker couple is nesting on the tree outside in our garden. The idea of taking some pictures of them past my mind already a few times. I have even tried it  before but until today with no successes.
The woodpecker is a really suspicious, shy and hyperactive "model" so its a bit frustrating to get a decent shot of it. Once your spotted it wouldn't come near, especially if you are holding one of this dangerous looking tele lenses.

Around this time of the year (beginning to middle of April)  its breeding season begins, so i know there will be a lot of movement around their nesting hole. This fact brought me to the decision its a good time to bring my plan into action.
In front of the nesting hole there is a small shad. I only had to take out all the junk, clean it a bit, hang a sheet where the door used to be and cut out a small hole, where i could peep out with the lens. As i finished to cut out the hole i tested it out, to be sure that its big enough and at the right angle. While testing the woodpecker arrived looked quickly around and dived in to its hole. I was so happy, everything is ready and it doesn't realize i'm sitting 4 meters from its nest. It was getting dark so there was no reason to stay in my hide anymore.

My plan for the next day was to wake up before sunrise,

The Ringed neck Parakeet

Not like every morning, today the first being i encountered wasn't a human being. it was an animal. I just opened the door to go brush my teeth, my sink an toothbrush are outside under the open sky, and there outside on the tree was sitting a beautiful parrot. it was a Ring-necked Parakeet. The first thing i did was run back as slowly as i can into my room, get the camera, connect my tele lens, run back again as slowly as i can and finally started taking pictures. The bird was very calm. I got so close to it that i past the lens minimum focusing distance (mfd). Usually the mfd of a tele isn't that close. In my case its around 3 meters but birds tend to get scared from the "white canon", when it's pointing their direction. The parrot was modeling for 10-15 minutes and then just flew back into the mountains. What a beautiful way to start a day, even better than coffee...