Sometimes photography reminds me of dieting. Everyone knows how hard it is to lose that last 5 lbs compared to the first 5 lbs. In the same way, the longer you take pictures the harder it is to get a better shot than you already have. That’s certainly true of getting shots at Big Beef Creek. I’ve gotten so many “great” shots that it’s harder and harder to get new shots I am satisfied with. Expensive new equipment has helped to get better shots, but so much depends on pure chance that it’s hard to improve on past shots.
If I’d taken this shot of a Great Blue Heron land on the rocks the first time I was there, I would probably have been thrilled with it
because it’s a pose I never see at Theler or Ridgefield.
I usually get shots of GBH hunting prey, not flying casually overhead as in this shot.
I can remember being thrilled the first time I got a shot liked this many years ago when I was shooting with a 400mm lens and a Canon Rebel. Now, not so much.
The real reason photographers go to Big Beef Creek, though, is to capture the interaction between the Great Blue Herons and the Bald Eagles and between the various Eagles that gather there. There was only four eagles the day I was there and the only interaction between GBH and eagles took place so far out that the pictures had to be heavily cropped, which means a serious loss of detail, though they still convey a sense of action lacking in the other pictures I took.
Hopefully I’ll get better shots on my next visit this week.
