Sunday, June 17, 2012

First birds photos in my early photography stage


Quite a while ago, I dug up some old bird photos that I took in my early photography stage. The slides are fine, however the color negatives have mold on them. Fortunately, the most important frame has mild mold

on it and it was mostly recovered after the cleaning. Then, scanned with the Nikon Coolscan and touched up some fine scratches. 

I have limited gears at that time; only shot with Nikon F90 + Sigma AF the APO 70-210mm f3.5-4.5. Fortunately, I can shot in close distance. I took a roll of chrome and a roll of color negative in total.

That was several years ago, as you can see from the above mentioned gears I used. On an evening at the front of my house back home, I heard birds chirping from bamboo trees. I went to have a look and saw a mother bird was teaching its offspring, but the fledgling chicks was too small and seemed to be its first flying. It fell beside a small creek and I rescued it. Putting it on my palm held it towards the mother bird. The mother can’t do anything because was too afraid of human. It just anxiously crying on top of the Bamboo tree and was hesitated to fly down to save the baby. The baby was unable to fly again and it was late and getting dark. Due to wildlife in the dark, I
was worry about the chicks, so decided to take it home. Put it in a temporary cage, did not dare to feed any food and only feed with water and covered three sides of the cage with fabric to keep it warmth.

On the next morning, I woke up early, that's minutes after 6am. I looked for anything that I can use for shooting; chose of a small pot of flower and hung a black fabric as backdrop. Unfortunately, I didn't find any black velvet in the house. Then I took one roll of chrome shot. During the shooting, the baby was constantly calling her mother.

Chrome

Next, I moved the chicks onto another camera and only took a few shot of color negatives. Then the mother appeared. I moved the chicks to the papaya tree beside my house, and partially hiding myself about 4 meters away. The mother flew down carefully, looked around with alert and then checked the baby and comforted it. The 210 mm focal length was not close enough, I just took a few randomly. After the mother began to catch food and feed the baby, I just set up the tripod about 2.5 meters away, exposed myself in the open air, without any camo or cover and finished up the rest of the color negatives. Soon after the shooting, the baby ate a lot and the strength has been restored, it began to fly in a short distance. From a distance from another tree above, the mother was chirping and encouraging the chicks to fly. It flew from one branch up to another branch incrementally and then met with the mother. Finally, the both flew away from my sight. At that moment, I was so grateful and relieved. Appreciated that the baby became my first bird model and relieved that the mother and child reunioned.

Negative

1 comment:

  1. Beautiful images!! I had a similar experience, my husband found a baby bird one evening, and we couldn't find the parents so we kept it home. The next morning the parents made a racket at our window and it was a treat to watch them reunite :) I didn't think of taking pictures for a while, but then remembered and managed a few shot. Shared them here, http://indianhomemaker.wordpress.com/2011/09/22/the-belief-that-baby-birds-that-are-touched-by-human-hands-will-be-rejected-by-their-parents-is-a-myth/

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