Second guessing

When I first started taking Nature images, there only a small handful of other photographers that I knew locally who had a similar interest and for the most part we were all at the beginning of that particular journey. Lately however, I have been meeting up with many Nature photographers that have been practicing their art for many years and are very skilled at it.

Most of them have huge expensive lenses attached to a variety of different cameras and I used to think they would be able to get a lot closer to the birds than I am until I realised that with those big lenses come lots of compromises. Many of them are manual focus only, so they miss out on the fun of panning with the birds in flight. A lot of them are using extenders so reducing the amount of light getting into the shot.

I am now happy with the equipment choices that I have made and am not so envious of the giant lenses any more. I doubt that I would be able to lift one of them let along carry it around from location to location, and if I need to get closer to my subject to get that 'wow' shot then I will just find a way to get closer!

Now that I am taking so many images of the same subject I know I am getting better at it and that I am starting to develop my own style of nature photography. I am my own worst critic; I need to stop second guessing what I am doing and just go with the gut decisions.  I appreciate all the bits of advice I have been given by all the people I meet up with but ultimately it is my image so I need to work out a way to achieve what I want in a way that works for me.

Unless otherwise stated, the images in each post on this blog were taken on the previous day. I am usually one day behind in my posting with weekends and holidays being the only exception. Much as I would like to be doing this every day I also have a full time job, so my photographic outings are usually in the late afternoon during the week.