Light and Shadow

Autumn is on its way, accompanied by a chill wind. I can put up with the cold, especially if there's a bit of sunshine and it stays dry and this morning I headed out to the local duck pond.

It was unusually quiet. No gulls or smaller birds, and no sign of the heron that is sometimes there. The ducks were congregated at the north end of the pond which gave me a choice of distance shots with the sun behind me, or moving in closer and shooting into the sun. This first shot is with the sun behind me. Something had startled the ducks and I caught the tail end of their brief flight.
Landing in formation

I then moved around to get closer. The sun was streaming straight towards me. I decided to work with the conditions, setting the exposure against the water rather than the ducks and going for some deep contrasts.
Into the sun

Back in the garden tonight, Cheeky made an appearance. She was in one of her highly cooperative moods. Here are a couple of shots. I was playing around with the lighting, with the flash set off the camera.


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Camera note: all duck shots taken with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. The fox was photographed with the EF 24-105 F4L IS USM lens and Canon 430EX flash unit. The flash was hand-held off camera (connected by a cord)

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This Post Has 10 Comments

  1. gdare

    16 Sep 2010

    Your garden is her dominion now 😀

  2. Dudley

    16 Sep 2010

    The off camera flash look good :up:

  3. Flying Red Fox Blog

    16 Sep 2010

    Cheeky looks so beautiful dosent she! :yes: It does indeed feel colder now, i want Summer back lol!

  4. Words

    16 Sep 2010

    Andy, still playing around with off-camera flash. It would be nice to set up several wireless units (not in the budget at the moment), but even a small lateral positioning helps.

  5. Words

    16 Sep 2010

    Thanks Erwin!

  6. Words

    16 Sep 2010

    Darko, it seems to be. She's taken over from Bold. It will be interesting to see what happens over the winter.

  7. Words

    16 Sep 2010

    Mark, Cheeky definitely rules the roost here.

  8. SittingFox

    17 Sep 2010

    Like the contrasty duck pics :up:

  9. Words

    17 Sep 2010

    Adele, it made a change to go with the odd lighting, rather than fighting it.

  10. Wulpen

    19 Oct 2012

    Beautiful set of Pict

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