September Bouquet
This is the composition of sunflowers against the barn, the one where I waited and waited for the male goldfinch (from Monday) to pose in silhouette using his foot to hold a seed in his mouth while he husked it. (Click image for greater detail.) Only certain photographers south of 221 get that sort of 'luck.' At least, for this shot, Tsuga wasn't helping.
Later the day this shot was taken, I was standing on the creekbank, waiting for the light to strike a certain spiderweb when a kestrel (old name: sparrow hawk) flew low over the creek, so close I could have touched him, and then perched maybe twenty feet away in the little walnut tree. I hesitated for an instant before realizing OH MY GOSH! I had my telephoto AND the 2x telextender on my camera around my neck. I clutched the camera. I raised it toward my eye. The dog ran straight at the walnut. And the viewfinder was empty. And I have only a word picture of the one that got away.
Comments
I used to collect my "almost" photographs, and decide anually which would have been the best photograph I didn't get. The mink walking along a rock ledge at Ospawagan Lake when the canoe drifted into the ledge while I tried to focus, the moose that waited patiently for me to compose and focus the camera only to take off crashing through the woods when the battery died. That sort of thing.
Posted by: Clare | September 16, 2005 11:18 PM
first looking at this, I didn't realize my laptop screen was leaned back too far for a clear picture, giving that laptoppy, polarized "photonegative" look... really made the sunflowers glow and the sky seem more stormy... try it yo'self! Great shot either way.
Posted by: nate | September 17, 2005 11:15 PM