December 2009 Squaw Creek Morning Geese

Having spent a small fortune renting the 600mm etc, for 21 days, I never concentrated much on wider perspective shooting. I'm glad I did the few times I did. With the big hill to the east and pre-dawn light, you can get some interesting things. Overexpose a bit and the water and ice looks like it has direct sun on it, which it doesn't. Then have the white birds/snow geese and the big hill right behind them, just makes for some odd contrast.

All it took to get this above was essentially just hitting auto adjust in the RAW converter, that is it. There's just a sweet point of lighting at that certain time for this area. And overexposing the water, with the white birds and dark hill behind, just does this.

Water overexposed yet again, as I'm rather certain there was still zero direct lighting on it.

Now the sun is over the hill and on it.

Different morning now.

This morning was surely the best for geese and twilight colors.

It can be tricky trying to time the flock in the air, because they spook up in one area, then circle around somewhere else for a short bit before landing again. I'd just have the tripod set up and drive down the road where it seemed would be best, then try and get it setup again real quick. Then they'd land and go up somewhere else.

Or they don't land at all and instead they head out to eat, like those above the hill out there are doing above.

Here comes the wave. Love the wave.

Sucks trying to change settings as they block the light down some.

Think crazy whooshing noise.

It's nice this day they actually cooperated with the better lighting. Usually they just take off too soon, are too far out, or take off after the sun is up.

A different morning again. I went down there probably 8 times in a month or so. Might have done 6 of them in 10 days. That 2 hr drive there and 2 hr drive back can get really old when done back to back, and when leaving at 4:00 a.m. each time. Anyway, awesome sun pillar this cold morning and the geese cooperating again by taking off at the perfect time for it.