Real photographers...

This past month, I’ve become infatuated with the garden birds in my backyard. Watching from a distance, their feathers appear to take on an incredible transparency as they are illuminated by the setting sun. Their display was incredible, and I’d wondered why I’d never paid attention to them before!

So, I grabbed my gear and set out to photograph the birds. Well, “bird” doesn’t quite convey what I am trying to photograph… I am trying to capture warm-blooded, erratic, flying creatures. They average 6 inches in length and move faster than the speed of light.

There. That should do it. If you see a rather manic image in your brain, congratulations. You’re seeing what you’re supposed to!

If you can’t tell, my admiration quickly took on the form of obsession. One, which has rendered me frustrated as I am yet to capture the photograph I thought I would. These little suckers are tricky! Culling through the thousands (and I’m not kidding) of empty or severely out-of-focus frames, I could feel the discouragement and doubt settling in. Ah, for they are old friends of mine.

They had a message for me, and I received it loudly and clearly. “If you knew what you were doing…” “You’re just wasting time and energy trying to…” Last, but certainly not least, “Real photographers capture birds in flight.”

That last one really weighed me down. It played on repeat in my brain. Discouragement and doubt had succeeded in their mission.

Some time has passed. Now, I’ve decided I am no longer going to be held down by these messages. So, here’s my reply.

I know more than I did a month ago. I know a Carolina Chickadee operates like a military missile. Wings tightly tucked by his side on dismount, heading directly to its destination without any funny business. I know Pine Warblers are curious and enjoy the clicking of my shutter. Robins think they run the place, and Eastern Bluebirds are kind of like me: highly motivated by food and water, but will overreact for little to no reason.

My goal is to photograph a garden bird in flight. So far, I’ve only been successful at photographing birds resting on perches or between the safety of the leaves on our evergreen trees. And that’s okay.

I am a real photographer because I have not given up.