A Killdeer... and Photography Tips

The first picture.....

 While on a walk with my kids, we saw a killdeer, but couldn't get close to it. We were on a path that led to a creek/river and the killdeer was farther down and there was no way to get to it... too much brush.I zoomed in as far as I could, but it was a darker area and hard to see. 

I was very disappointed as I wanted to capture the scene, so I took a couple of pictures figuring they wouldn't be any good, but I had to take a couple anyway. 





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TIP:
By the way, if you have a digital camera, TAKE PICTURES!... take a lot of pictures (it's nice not not have to pay for film and developing!) Sometimes you will be surprised what you end up finding and using. Yes, you will throw a lot of them away, but you will learn and improve your skills... and hopefully, you will have a lot of fun too.  :)  
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In editing I cropped the picture to this and it was okay, but originally I rejected it as too hard to see and too blurry. The original picture covered a larger area than this and the killdeer was just barely visible. 

 I lightened the color some and liked the effect more, but still didn't have a use for it, so just left it. Periodically, I went back to it because I have never been able to take a picture of a killdeer before, especially one with the reflection in the water, so I kept trying.















I cropped the same picture down even more to this. I tried cropping the same picture tighter, but the quality reduced more than I wanted.

 I finally settled on cropping it this much. I wanted the bird, the reflection, the ripples and some of the rocks in the picture.

I tried playing with the colors more,but it just didn't look right... not natural, so I only did a little to it.



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 TIP
When working with changing the colors on your pictures, don't overdo it...  it is best if the picture looks natural, not overdone. Do as little as possible... unless you are looking to make some obviously enhanced work. 
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 The second picture:

 When I cropped this picture down from the original, I liked it better than the first one... and you can see the killdeer better. The shadows and reflections on the water are interesting.




Again, I lightened it just a bit and the picture below shows how that turned out.  It worked.

When I copied the picture and then cropped this one tighter, the quality went down, but  it is acceptable. This was part of what I had to learn... not to always reject a picture that is not as clear as I want it to be.

I realized that there is almost a painting type of quality to these photos. I really didn't do a lot to the pictures other than a LOT of cropping and more cropping.

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TIP:
If you have a picture you like and want to play with, you can make a copy of it. To do so(at least in Picasa) you click on the picture. When on the picture, you click on "file", then on "Save a copy". This allows you to play with the picture and make changes while still keeping the original.  Of the 6 pictures here, they all come from only 2 original photos. 
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I hope you are developing your skills as a photographer. Don't be intimidated by not having an expensive camera. Creativity, skill and hard work can overcome some of those issues...  not all, but it is certainly worth working on it no matter what camera you have to use. 

My photography skills continue to develop as I keep working on them... I learn a little here and there and most of all, I really enjoy taking pictures... so much so that I almost always have a camera with me... I just don't want to miss anything. :)  

Do you find these photography tips useful? I hope so...  and periodically, I will share more of them.  Thank you for visiting.


If you are interested, another post in this series is:

Tea.... and Photography Tips????


#photography #PhotographyTips #pictures  #killdeer




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