Eurasian Blue Tit, by Jeffrey Haak
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a beautiful, plump, wet tit? Like most people, the first thing that comes to my mind is something along the lines of this stunning image of a Eurasian Blue Tit by Jeffrey Haak. What makes Mr. Haak's tit pic so special is a combination of the sharpness and the composition. Not anyone with an iPhone can take a tit pic worth writing home about, and yet, Mr. Haak has done just that. Due to the difficulty in photographing this bird as well as the artistic decisions Mr. Haak has made involving the framing of the subject, Mr. Haak's photograph deserves recognition as photo of the week.
I think that most non-photographers, probably even most non-bird photographers, do not fully realize the difficulty involved in photographing birds. I know before I started taking photographs I figured it was pretty easy, if you had fancy camera equipment. Indeed, I figured that boob with a DSLR could waltz right up to a bird on a stroll through the park, take a National Geographic-worthy photograph, and waltz right away. I mean, with the millions of bird photographs uploaded to the internet everyday, how hard can it possibly be??
For anyone who has never taken a bird photograph before, let me explain the issues that arise with trying to photograph our feathered friends:
- Birds don't like you near them. Most birds (unless humans have fed them lots of bread at the park) will fly away the second they see you paying attention to them. If the birds see that you're not paying attention to them, you can often get quite close. But as soon as you show even the slightest interest, they'll take off. Why? Because predators show interest. Predators make eye contact and predators directly approach (or worse) stalk their prey.
- The longer your lens, the more difficult it becomes to use. You might naturally assume that, if I can't get close to the bird, if only I had $10,000 to spend on a 800mm lens, then I could get stunning bird photographs. This is misleading. The longer your lens, the more skill you need to have to wield it. Why? For every millimeter you add to your focal length, the ability to hold the lens stable becomes more difficult. Every slight jitter— from the wind blowing to your finger pushing the shutter button to the slap of the shutter itself— becomes magnified with a longer lens. Likewise, the longer your lens, the more precise you have to be with your aim. I like to think of focal length a bit like basketball: imagine the width of the basket is equivalent to the width of your focal length. That is, a super-wide angle 10mm fisheye lens is a 10-ft wide basketball hoop. Pretty easy to shoot those three-pointers, right? As you increase your focal length the width of the basketball hoop gets smaller, by the time you get to a 300mm lens, your basketball hoop is standard width; three-pointers are little more tricky. By the time you get to a professional-level bird photography lens, say 500mm+, that basketball hoop might as well be the same width as the basketball and you're shooting half-court shots.
- Birds move, a lot. The smaller the bird, the more it'll move. A bird like the tit captured by Mr. Haak was probably constantly moving— looking every direction, shaking off wings, preening feathers, and flying rapidly from place to place.
Thus, I have chosen this photo for this week's photo of the week due to the sheer technical skill required to take this photograph. Mind you, I'm not even talking about the technical skill to expose the tit properly. The ability to even get the bird in frame with a lens that size is a feat in and of itself. What makes this photograph truly remarkable is how sharp it is. In order to get a photograph like this you assuredly have to be using a tripod, as stabilizing the lens with your hands for a bird so small might as well be impossible. Thus, Mr. Haak proves his technical prowess in the crisp, clean bird portrait
Finally, what sets Mr. Haak's tit pic apart from the thousands I see online every day is the relationship between foreground and background. As I have said previously, finding a clean background for wildlife photography is both a necessity and harder said than done. Here, Mr. Haak has chosen an background void of distractions and as a bonus, one that compliments the colors of the bird in the foreground.
In sum, Mr. Haak's technical skills and eye for composition shine through in his stunning photograph. His control over long lenses and small birds inspires me, and for that reason I have selected this cute little tit as my favorite photo this week. For more fantastic wildlife photography, check out Jeffrey Haak on Instagram @haakphotography. His fox photography is particularly adorable.