Click, Edit, Repeat

I am currently reading a book by one of my favourite authors; Haruki Murakami. I was really very pleased to receive his latest novel for Christmas and I carefully timed my reading so that I finished my previous book in time to start "The City and It's Uncertain Walls" on Christmas day. I knew before I started reading it that this novel was a reworking of a short story that the author had written over 40 years ago. He had said that he was never satisfied with the short story and it was never reissued. So during the Covid 19 lockdown he went back to it and expanded the themes and produced a novel that he felt did justice to the original story.

As I was reading I was very quickly aware that there are striking similarities between this new novel and another earlier novel by Murakami (which I had been given last Christmas and was still fresh in my mind) called Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End Of The World. The walled city in this latest work is almost identical to the city known as the End of the World in the earlier work, the library, the mystical beasts,  the gatekeeper etc feel like they have been directly lifted from the other book. At first I felt a sense of disappointment that a book I had so eagerly anticipated was so much like one I had read before. I felt cheated because I wanted something new. As I continued reading however I could see that it is indeed a new book and the original ideas have been taken further than before. This experience got me thinking about the creative process and how it is exactly that, a process. It is rare that we achieve what we want first time round, it starts with an idea and can take many attempts to produce whatever it is that we envisioned in the first place. With a novel I guess there is the writing, re-writing and editing before publishing so that what appears on the shelf as a final version is exactly what the author wants to present. Over time however, if the book is more about ideas and emotions than the story itself, then there is justification in reworking it.

Any work of art is the final product of lots of working and reworking, look beneath the surface of any old master painting and there is evidence of corrections and changes until the final image is complete.

This process is important in photography too. Whatever type of photography it is whether that is abstract, wildlife, landscape, portrait astrophotography  or whatever, the photographer will go back time and again to the same spot or photograph the same model, creature, bird, plant, object, portion of the sky over and over again and take multiple images to create a final image that they are really happy with. Also because things constantly change (seasons, lighting, aging, skill set) every image is new. That process can be taken further in editing; a negative or RAW digital image can be manipulated in so many ways to produce a stunning image that is more than a simple photo.

I was looking through my portfolio on a stock photo site the other day and realised that while I don't have a special focus to my photography there are nevertheless themes and there are lots of similar shots of some wildlife or places I have visited. Looking at them I thought about how I would like to revisit some of those places to have another go. There are some places I will never tire of visiting or photographing. There are some creatures that I get such a kick out of snapping and I think I could  always capture a better shot, and there are some creatures/birds that have been elusive or incredibly difficult to photograph that I need to go back again and again. 

I like to share my images here or on other media because it usually means I have produced something I am happy with. Often I will acknowledge that I could do better but it spurs me on to improve my eye, my camera skills and my editing ability. So that is the process of Click, Edit, Repeat. It is not laziness if it is done with purpose and perhaps the process should be expanded to "Click, edit, share repeat".

With that extra element in mind here are a few images from places I have visited many times but will hopefully get to photograph again in the future

Birds In Flight

So before I get into today's post and talk about the pictures below I have to put something right. The other day I did a post titled Long Eared Owl and I shared some beautiful shots of a really magnificent bird. The only problem is it was not a Long Eared Owl it was a Eurasian Eagle Owl and I wanted to clear that up, it doesn't change the fact that they're great pictures though so if you haven't seen them take a few moments and have a look.

But now for today...

I won't pretend that these are necessarily great pictures but they're not dreadful either. They do show how difficult it is to get perfect shots of birds in flight especially in low light conditions where it isn't possible to use a fast shutter speed. The light really was poor on this particular day and these birds don't hang about so it is not a good combination.

Nevertheless there it was a good challenge and while I have discarded lots of images I think these few are worth sharing. Bear in mind that these were all shot handheld at 1/200sec with and ISO of 640 between 300mm and 600mm with birds capable of flying 50 - 60mph or more.

So from top to bottom we have a British Barn Owl (this one is called Bob and at one point he sat on my head), next we have two shots of a Snowy Owl, next up is a Harris Hawk and then a hybrid bird, a cross between a Gyr Falcon and Saker Falcon (which by the way is absolutely beautiful and I will share a better picture of it tomorrow) and the final two shots were the last of the day and feature a Black Kite that was demonstrating how agile it is by catching food that was tossed into the air. 

I am fairly happy with these pictures, but as ever they just spur me on to want to do better so come the better weather (better light conditions) I will be back to try again.

Two Moons

Today's offering is two shots of the moon at different times of the evening. The first was obviously earlier in the evening. There is no filter, the sky was really that blue.

I enjoy taking pictures of the moon, it presents a number of challenges and takes some practice getting it right. I will keep practicing.

Taking A Tumble

As the tide turned and started to come back in at Runswick Bay several surfers went out to take advantage of the waves.

These four pictures were my first attempt at capturing a surfer in action. This guy seemed to be doing really well riding the edge of the wave but as he turned he fell and there's a look of half surprise on his face but I realised when I looked closer at the last shot that he had a GoPro clenched in his teeth.

I have some better shots than these which I will post in a day or so but I thought I would show these first and hopefully you will see that I got better with the action shots as the day went on, after all practice makes perfect (I'm not there yet).