Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

Canon PowerShot

You Wanted The Harbor Seal IN The Photo?

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by Kimberly A. Cook                   (Twitter@  WarriorTales)

Spent a wonderful weekend with family at the beach the first weekend in August. Went on a walk to enjoy the great weather and stalk snoozing harbor seals with the camera.

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Mom getting out of the ocean on her own rock away from kid or suitor? I’m not sure which. 

 

Since we got a late start after sleeping in, the bright sun after 10 a.m. washes out colors but harbor seals don’t go by my preferred photo shoot schedule. They have naps to take.

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Kid/suitor slips away into the ocean and this seal looks like it’s a challenge to get up on the rock. I know that feeling so well.  

 

Once again my trusty little Canon PowerShot ELPH340HS was up to the task. However, wearing a baseball cap would have helped keep the glare from the sun off the viewfinder frame. But patience and timing is everything when it comes to photos, plus taking good and bad photos too.

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This is what happens when you are try to hold an ELPH camera by hand at full zoom and then breathe. The seal disappears and only the tail is found, far right. Cute tail!

 

Turns out I took about 180 photos over the course of the two hour walk, most of them of seals. Some photos had only parts of seals and some had no seals since I couldn’t see what I was shooting in the sun glare. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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Even a seal can’t seem to find peace from kids, suitors or rock crashers. Somebody always wants your rock. Sigh.

 

Had three groups to concentrate on; young pups playing in the ocean, the adults lazing on the rock and one intrepid seal who I think was trying to get away from the kids on her own rock. This series of photos were shot over thirteen minutes, with a bunch of other not so great ones.

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And All’s Well That Ends Well as Shakespeare would say. I’m a sucker for a happy ending. Now I need to go find a warm rock to nap on myself.

Taking pictures of wildlife from harbor seals to birds and even Spec Ops Cat is similar to taking sports photos; you’ve got to be quick and keep clicking away. Sometimes the harbor seal escapes the photo and other times you get lucky with a gem of a shot.

Practice makes almost perfect when it comes to photos, besides that whole breathing problem thing trying to keep the camera level.

Get outside and start taking action pics today!

 

 

 

 

Do You Have The Eye Of A Photographer?

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by Kimberly A. Cook               (Twitter@   WarriorTales)

Spent part of last week on vacation at the beach, Depoe Bay, Oregon, one of my favorite spots on the planet. In the quest to get there we ended up in two traffic jams, so a stop at the Oregon State Park Van Duzer Corridor rest stop in the Coast Range was a great idea and a necessity.

Photo 1 - overall scene setting shot. Photojournalism rule - always make sure you get an overview picture.
Photo 1 – scene setting shot. Photojournalism rule – always make sure you get an overview picture.

I love to visit the stream which runs through the trees by the picnic tables, away from the rest stop building. The sound of the gurgling water is so relaxing. Even with low water at this time of year.

There are two rest stops, one North and on South. On on the way back we always check the river on the South side too, since it runs deeper than the North side stream.

I’ve been travelling this road for 35 plus years so I must have hundreds of photos of this stream. Thought it might be fun to show you the series of photos I took that day, in order. Kinda.

Photography, like writing, requires practice. What better fun for us shutter bugs than to take pictures outside by a forest brook? It was late in the afternoon so the light was still bright, so the green in the left side of photo one fades by being bleached out by the sun.

Next up I decided to zoom in and focus on the larger rock in the stream bed in photo three. Normally the water is deep here any other time of the year, so this was an opportunity to use the rock as a focal point in the lower left of the photo.

Photo 3 - yes I skipped two. I put the rock in the upper third on pic 2, then changed my mind and put it in the lower third to draw in the eye. Better.
Photo 3 – yes I skipped two. I put the rock in the upper third on pic 2, then changed my mind and put it in the lower third to draw in the eye. Better.

Close ups are good, but I also wanted to see what a mid-range photo would look like so I pulled back the zoom and framed shot five. Liked the filtered light coming through the trees and into the water and the better contrast between the water, rocks and trees.

So the last picture is my favorite of the five I shot in this series. I checked the times on the photos and I shot them all in two minutes.

The great thing about digital cameras is you’ve always got pixels to spare; as long as you carry an extra charged battery and memory card.

Spent part of the trip trying to use my new Canon PowerShot Elph 340  HS camera. Somehow managed to shoot video when I hadn’t planned on it, so more time is needed with that camera. It has a much longer zoom and greater pixels, the better to get harbor seal close-ups!

These stream photos were shot with my trusty old Canon PowerShot Elph SD800 IS. It’s so hard to give up an old reliable and move onto the next one. I’m talking about cameras here, by the way, just to be clear.

Have you played with your camera today?

Picture 5 and my favorite. I can count, I just skipped two other photos in between.
Picture 5 and my favorite. I can count, I just skipped one more photo in between.