Images of a friends Bird, Ali

In a recent post I spoke about how I had obtained a brand new lens for my Nikon Z6. That lens was a Macro lens, capable of taking pictures of tiny things, and making them appear very large. The world of macro-photography is one of details, interesting perspectives, and things that you would not otherwise notice were you to perceive things in a day-to-day manner.

My friend Krystal has a bird called Alistar, or Ali, and he's a muse in lots of her artwork. She has an account on hive, but it hasn't been used for a long time. She's a talented illustrator, and I wish she'd share her talents more. Maybe some people can help convince her…

Anyway, over to her birb, Ali.

I took these shots using the Nikon Z6, and the modelling light on my Godox AD600BM strobe. Birds are definitely not creatures that you want to attack with strobe light - they're skittish, have tiny hearts and small endocrine / nervous systems … which can lead to shock. I don't want to be known as someone who harms my subjects while photographing them.

No birbs were harmed in the making of this post.

Many things were learned about the bird.

I'm not quite sure if I hit the right spot to focus on the image above, it appears the feathers on his head may be sharper than the eye (treating this like a human portrait) - but there's an incredible level of detail captured in this!

Here, the eye is most certainly in focus, and tis tends to have more of a classical portrait vibe to the image, with the way in which elements of the bird's features are arranged. Getting the bird to be still was also a challenge, both for me (To track) - and for the lens auto focus to ensure that the image was sharp.

I really like this image, with th multicoloured glow in the background, even if the eye is clearly out of focus. The glow is from the TV that was on in the room. The beak has such detail in it, remnants of all of Ali's meals of broccoli, spinach, and other seeds and greenery.

I lovee this image, I feel like it captures the mischievousness of all birds quite well. It's almost an "oh rly?" type capture. Perhaps ithas meme potential, but I love the fact that I was able to capture a sharp image of the bird moving!

Finally, an image of Ali preening. This one was a happy accident, as I'd framed up the image differently, but he moved, and I moved, and this image is what you see.

I love capturing images. There's a shame there's a lockdown on at the moment that means I can't interact with peopole and capture their images, but encapsulating a moment into forever via a camera is something that is just endlessly fascinating, satisfying, and something I value immensely.