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Mostly photography and some other musings.

Posts tagged animal photography

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Two pictures with birds on them from my Lisbon trip, a few weeks ago. Going to the beach in December is great but it wasn’t my intention to have a swim, so I just enjoyed playing in the sand with my daughter and stalking seagulls, like the ones shown in the first picture. This was taken in one of the small beaches in Cascais. Speaking of birds, that peacock from the second picture was even more elusive than this one. So there he is, standing between the rows of plants in that garden, keeping an eye on me. All the time… The garden, with a small zoo,  surrounds the Condes de Castro Guimarães museum.

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Enough of landscapes and architecture photos. Lets try some street photography.

It’s a genre I still haven’t tried yet. I find it too hard. I need to pay closer attention to classics, and groups on Flickr like HCSP where some interesting examples can be seen. Usually, this pictures must have a trick. They don’t need to be technically perfect . They rely on some more or less deep joke in its subject, composition or light. The ones that you don’t initially understand what’s happening there are the best ones, I think.  And one issue I find the hardest, is that they have people. Taking pictures of unknown people is a really hard thing for me. It is easier to add some in landscape or architecture pictures, just to give a bit more sense of scale and add some interest. But in this street ones, sometimes you have to get quite close. So here, instead of people, I have four gooses. Is it a good starting point? Good weekend!

Swans. Despite their elegant look, this birds are violent.


Well, they get violent if you get close to them, and more if they are with their family. I tried a close and personal shot of these the other day and they almost bite me. They make a noise, like a cat hiss. And they look much bigger when they open their wings. Sometimes, the cutest animals are the most dangerous, as happens also with cats.

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I just don’t understand cats.

I had one for long years, even after discovering I was allergic to her. Ada was called, I suppose in Ada Lovelace‘s honour. It’s the kind of names a young Computer Science student finds cool at that time. It is weird how they behave. They are not too much different from bigger cats, like tigers, and lions. Also, it is surprising how still us, humans, expect to get some love from them, and they just go to their own interests. They can go quickly from cute animals, to full-blown killing machines. There is a weird love/hate relationship with them, I think. Much nicer are dogs, but these also seem to have a sometimes over simplistic view of life, I think, that sometimes gets confused with loyalty. They don’t look as sophisticated and smart as cats, but they will be with you their entire life, even if you don’t take proper care of them, as some people do. Of course, cats and dogs almost never mix well…

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Small, cute, but clearly dangerous…

I saw this little frog in London aquarium. The same place where I meet this crocodile. I don’t know the name of its species, but those bright colours in her skin must mean something. I wonder what its predators (or preys) may think about them. Are they irremediable attracted by those skin colours? Or is it the other way, they are scared to death when they see this? I’m sure the evolution process has been quite fun.

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peacock

This peacock was a bit difficult to photograph.

I wanted a full frontal view, for later cropping in a square format. That was my initial idea. I ended with a lot of shots of the bird, and I found this to be the one I most liked. The issue I had was that I needed to crop a lot the picture, to get rid of the people who was around it. I think that affected a bit the sharpness of the feather patterns. The colours saturation is boosted on purpose. I’m very fond of this picture. It was my first accepted submission in the Pentax Photo Gallery. I forgot to mention, this was taken in Leeds Castle, a place  I visited a few years ago. I will post more pictures taken there some day.

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Spiders may not still be here, but the cows have been released!

This is one of the most surprising things to newcomers in Cambridge. There are cows in some parks in the town. You can find them here, here and possibly here. I think I have seen them here also. They are mostly harmless, but when you pass near them with your bike, you cannot avoid some weird thoughts about bull fighting. Cows in the parks also mean Spring should be closer!