Lessons Learned

Bear with me, this is a little longer than you are used to seeing. I wanted to make today's post a little more that just pretty pictures and try to present a couple of lessons learned. The first lesson is photographic and the second one is for life in general (for those that know me well ... humour me and pretend that I am even remotely qualified to be giving a life lesson).
The photographic lesson derives itself from the idea of perspective. The two images below are technically of the same subject (the barn and field) yet are completely different images. When you get to a scene and start shooting, make sure that you move around a bit (or at least change the view by adjusting the direction/tilt/etc on the tripod as is seen here). I hate to tell you this but the chance that you nailed the perfect composition on your first try when getting to the scene is very unlikely (and if you did ... You probably won't be taking photographic advice from me!)To make a long story short, never underestimate the power of shifting your point of view when shooting a specific subject.
The life lesson (again ... humour me) is nothing revelutionary. In fact every one of your parents have probably given you this lesson more than once before. When I took the images below, I was not intending on making an hdr/sunrise/landscape image at all. In fact that morning I got up at 02:45 to try and get an image of the comet that is just becoming visible to the naked eye. Getting that Image turned out to be a big failure. I by far underestimated the difficulty of capturing an image of a faint comet, near a major city, with just a camera and a tripod. That being said, I didn't just go home and sulk in my failure. Having realised that I wasn't going to get the image I wanted, I took advantage of being out (with the intention of shooting) and find myself something else to shoot. Don't be so stuck on achieving(or your failure to achieve)a goal that you completely miss any other opportunities that come along.
That being said, I guess I have no excuse but to follow another piece of advice that every parent gives: if at first you don't succeed .... Essentially I may have to brave another 2:45am to attempt the comet again!

Steve and Josephine ... My Bad

When I put up the first few pictures I took of the osprey on Navy Bay Field, I got told off by one of my classmates I graduated with. I was unaware of this, but apparently these two birds have names. Well, at least to the RMC civil engineers of the class of 2008. The male was named Steve and the Female was named Josephine during the survey camp in 2007. So ... since Steve and Josephine are always around, I will more than likely have more pictures of them to come, and I will show them the respect they deserve. Thank you Lydia, and I'm sorry :P. On a side note, so that I was able to accurately name Steve and Josephine, I had to look up exactly how it was that you tell a male and a female osprey apart. Apparently it is quite easy! The females have a band of darker feathers on their chest (dubbed their 'necklace' or their 'bra') wheras the male's chest is just white. In the first picture you can clearly see Josephine's necklace, wheras Steve (in the second picture), has none. Neat! To see the rest of the pictures of Josephine and Steve, including those I posted earlier, you can do so here. To see the rest of my flickr photostream click here.

Josephine

LARGE

Steve

LARGE