Big Week of Birding
I am still not a very good birder. I can hear them. Sometimes I can see them. But more often than not, I can’t identify them. If I’m lucky, they’ll land at a close enough distance for an ok photograph.
It’s now June and we’re in the middle of birding week.
The full schedule of events is posted on the Parks Canada website.
“Prince Edward Island National Park is hosting its first-ever Big Week of Birding June 1-10 in honour of its 75th anniversary and inviting beginner and advanced birders to take part” – The Guardian
Today’s Image – The Iconic Bald Eagle
The Gaspereau are running and it’s the season when the eagles gather around the shore lines to feed on fish. While the images I made were not technically perfect, they are still pretty good reference shots. For a giant intimidating bird, they are extremely fearful and incredibly difficult to get close to on Prince Edward Island.
Under the Heat (with Honest Image Critiques)
We live in a world that’s politically incorrect to be negative. In this world where we can do no wrong, you’ll often see complaints among photographers about how Facebook and Flickr, etc are a celebration of everyones work. It has the maximum encouragement because every single photo is the best and those that break that trend are looked down on. Which is totally fair because it’s all personal preferences. There is a reason there is no dislike button. It’s how these sites were designed to work. Negative commenting just looks bad.
So I’m not suggesting this type of commenting is wrong and the support is needed but if it were all true, we’d all be fantastic and if we were all fantastic, how does one feel the need to improve? Finding critiques is hard and receiving qualified critiques is even harder. The two local competitions that I know of are held by the PPOC and PEI Photo Club. While at different levels, the live judging is a great experience to watch. You can learn so much even on the prints that are not your own. And whether I agree with the comments or not, I want to hear the negatives just as much, if not more than the positive ones. After all, I already liked the photo enough to share it.
For the past two years, I have volunteered my time to help organize the photo print show for the PEI Photo Club and part of the exhibit involves hiring judges to provide constructive reviews for each and every print. Judges range from photographers, painters, instructors, designers and gallery owners. I don’t remember all of the positive comments but I do remember all of the negative ones still 3 years later. They have forever greatly impacted my opinions on the specific elements the comments were referring to.
If you’re local to PEI and that alone is not enough incentive to participate, we have put together a nice little bundle of prizes this year that might possibly rival the generous sponsorship from Think Tank Photo last year. This year I approached all the self publishing educators that I’ve personally bought from and asked for help. I was hoping at least 1 would reply but I’m happy to say all but 2 responded and I feel we have a real winning team of support this year from: Craft & Vision, Kelby Training, The Luminous Landscape, Guy Tal, Bruce Percy, oopoomoo, Jay & Varina Patel, OPC Magazine, Stuck in Customs, flatbooks and Atlantic Photo Supply.
This years show will be opened to the public in downtown Charlottetown from July 9th – 30th at The Guild Gallery. Full details can be found at www.peiphotoclub.com.
Today’s Image – Breathing Warm Light
Made during a Cirque du Soleil parade down Great George Street in Charlottetown, this free to attend parade at dusk was the march to the waterfront for their stage performance during the Summerfest Festival in 2010. This was my most successful image from last years show.
and here are some more of my other entries over the past years.