SURVIVOR

This bald eagle image was my very first photograph of a raptor. I was chaperoning my students on a field trip to a renaissance festival near Dallas. The festival had a small birds of prey demonstration. As a science teacher, I was immediately drawn to it, as renaissance festivals are not known for their plethora of “sciencey” offerings. The star of the show was this bald eagle who was missing most of its right wing as a result of a hunting mishap several years earlier. 

Click in the image to see the high resolution version

Thankfully, the wounded bird had been brought to a licensed animal rehabilitator and made as full a recovery as possible. Since it could no longer fly without the missing wing, it joined this show as an education ambassador to help young people appreciate the majesty of our national bird, but also to gain a better understanding of responsible hunting here in Texas. It was very used to having people close by and I was able to get this shot. I particularly like the detail in both the feathers and the eye – the success of this shot inspired me to seek out future chances to capture other animals in “portrait” style images! 

Happy 4th of July!

As a nature photographer who also has enjoys photographing flags, I thought I'd  post some of my American Flag themed composites to celebrate the 4th of July. I often like to take flag photos and convert them into textures which can then serve as backgrounds which can help "rescue" other images that have faults - I can then extract a critical part of the "flawed" image and salvage it with a flag background.

The US Flag flying at the entrance to Fort Sumpter National Monument - This year marks the 150th anniversary (sesquicentennial) of the shelling of the fort that began the US Civil War.

The Statue of Liberty against a textured flag that I took which flies in the plaza around her pedestal. The sky was a mottled grey cloudy mess that day, so the flag served as a much better background.

President George Washington's statue which stands in front of Federal Hall in New York City. Federal Hall is where Washington took his first Oath of Office as President in 1789. The background of the original image was littered with tourists so I extracted the statue and placed him before a flag I textured as if it were a mural on a brick wall.

This composite came about because the background behind the two captive eagles was very distracting and blown out. I used two layers, a forest silhouette and a textured flag and placed the eagles on their perch in the foreground to create a theme of American Wilderness.

Thanks for sharing your time here today, I hope you have an enjoyable Fourth!