Early in the year I was frustrated by my inability to get a picture of the elusive little hummingbirds that sashayed through our front garden, disappearing the moment a camera appeared.
I worked hard to win their trust, or at least to get them to totally ignore me, and now I have enough photos filling up my hard drives that I’ve started deleting the â€?”poorestâ€? shots.
What most intrigues, and frustrates, me, of course, about photography, particularly with the advent of Photoshop, are the infinite choices to be made in selecting and preparing a shot for â€?”publication.â€? Should I sharpen the image or blur the background? Should I adjust the colors? Is iridescent a color?
Given forty â€?”goodâ€? shots of a hummingbird, which do I choose to present. Do I go with the clearest photo? The most â€?”realisticâ€? photo?
Though I suspect most people might find this to be my best picture of a hummingbird
I really think this one
is the most â€?”realisticâ€? because it’s the way most of us truly â€?”seeâ€? hummingbirds as they dart from flower to flower, first here, there, then somewhere other than there, seldom stopping to say â€?”hello,â€? or even â€?”good bye,â€? cheeky little lads or lasses whose sole purpose seems to be to amaze with their herky-jerky aerobatics.
The penultimate question is what do I do with this sudden wealth of shots? Do I simply burn them to a DVD and forget them? Do I change the name of my blog to â€?”Humming Alongâ€? and feature my latest shots, accompanied by in-depth articles on hummingbirds and hummingbird lore?
Perhaps I’ll just ramble on a bit and use it as an excuse to fill up the screen with another one, or even two, of my hummingbird photos.