Pretty Guy and Old Man
by Gregory Scott
Title
Pretty Guy and Old Man
Artist
Gregory Scott
Medium
Photograph - Photograph
Description
I rarely show my feeders in my hummingbird photos. This is a relatively un-photogenic black-chinned hummingbird, and a totally un-photogenic unwashed geezer. I'm waiting for the relatively rare (and pretty) Violet Crowned hummingbird to visit my outdoor "studio" at my campsite on the lake at Patagonia Lake State Park in Arizona. I get daily visits from him, but they are relatively infrequent. To pass the time, I decided to play around with a self portrait.
The feeder is a Perky Pet hanging bottle style hummingbird feeder. For photography, here's how I use it. Remove the perch, the flowers, and the bee guards, and throw them away. Saw off 3 of the 4 feeder ports with a hacksaw. Plug the holes with hot glue. Now you have a single port hanging feeder. It's particularly good for photographing hummingbirds in level flight, from below and in front of the bird. Note the position of the bird, a couple of inches behind the feeder port. This is the standard "rest" position that the bird takes between sips, and that rest position is the main "secret" to taking hummingbird photos without ugly feeders. Sorry, Perky Pet!
You can see my white cardboard background behind me. I don't want it blindingly white, just light grey, so it's pretty far behind the feeder. Normally the camera is about twice as close to the bird, so that he fills the frame more, but not so close that more than half the shots don't show the whole bird. Obviously, from this photo, you see that I can move in as close as I want to to fill the frame. Most hummingbirds aren't very afraid of people or cameras. They are a bit startled by the camera noise, often, but usually immediately return to feeding, and usually learn to mostly ignore it, except that by reflex they do learn to blink at the sound of the camera, because that means that the flash is about to pop.
Uploaded
March 7th, 2013
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Comments (3)
Sandy Tolman
Agree - fascinating information. Love the photo! Reminds me of the one I thought was so magical that would have sworn it was a dream image or cgi if did not know better --- and you said, it was a real photo and that "it was real, you were there!" *lol* .. . .. Hummingbird photographer photographed in his natural habitat!