Saturday, May 23, 2015

The Osprey and the Shell Picker

Beach erosion has taken this old buttonwood. It's still twiggy, but before too long it will be a picturesque snag, if some collector doesn't cut off its branches. I made this picture last week, at low tide. I had to wait about 20 minutes for a slow moving shell picker to mosey out of the frame. At one point she looked up at me as I stood waiting behind my tripod, arms folded across my chest, and said, “Oh, am I in your picture?” I nodded. “Sorry,” she said, and went back to her shelling. I went back to my waiting.  


So, a week later it was high tide, according to the natural scheme of things. I returned to do it again, to see if I might be able do to it a little differently.  A neutral density filter and a graduated neutral density filter let me shoot into the rising sun with a long enough exposure (about two seconds) to turn the surf satiny. The tide and surf kept the shellers out of my frame but the ospreys were there, on a favorite perch right next to my buttonwood snag.

 © 2015 Buck Ward                        The Photographist                            www.buckward.net



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