Flamingos…..

So, I am not a wildlife photographer by any stretch of the imagination. I am not patient enough, I get bored easily and I don’t own a long lens. I do have a degree in zoology though and could ramble on for hours about the biology of different species so this seems a shame that I cannot get the two to mix. I miss the creativity that multiple exposure offers me when I am photography animals……so once back from a wonderful Sheclicks meet up at the Martin Mere WWT wetland centre up near Liverpool with the glorious flamingos I thought I would give a go to multiple exposure and see how this worked out for me - rather well as it seems! This top image I took a double exposure in camera, one in focus and one out and then combined this with an image of white paint just to add some texture to the scene.

These 3 portraits were all single images in the camera - well that’s a little bit of a lie - as the canon R5 that I was borrowing for this weekend has the option to keep all files even if you are creating a multiple exposure actually they were all supposed to be creative pink shots. I didn’t like any of the finished products however, but I was keen on some of the single shots. Going left to right:

Image 1 is combined with a rock effect texture and I’ve used quite a hard blend mix as I wanted to kleep the delicate colours of the beak. This flamingo was brown in colour so this hasn’t changed the colour of the feathers.

Image 2: Well I tried lots of things but nothing quite matched up to the original, so I left it!

Image 3:P I loved the water droplets on this one but I didn’t love the background so I multiple exposed it with a sky I had to show off the flamingo with no distractions

These two images were both in camera multiple exposures to begin with. The one of the left was a double in camera multiple exposure I have blended with the bokeh of the Christmas lights on Tottenham Court Road! I rather like it - Christmas flamingos! I had to brighten the left side with a linear mask in Lightroom so you could see her or his beady little eye! The right hand image is 4 images of the same flamingo going about his or her flamingoey business with a white wall - apparently this is standard business when using flamingos as subjects for multiple exposure - who knew!

The two above images were created in the same way as the one at the start of this blog - one in focus, one out of focus and then blended with a texture. In the case of the right image - a scratchy painted image and in the case of the left what white painted wall again.

The one below with, the beady eye again is subtly blended with a lichen wall to add a little texture and ensure that the birds truly are the stars of the show!

Maybe I will reconsider this wildlife photography business after all - it seems it can be really quite creative….