Favorites Series VI

I believe I'll end the series with this post. I have more photos I could pick, but I don't wish to belabor the point and we're all going to be busy with the approaching holidays. Choosing photos for this post was the toughest since I knew they would be the last in the series. I hope you've enjoyed the posts and understood my purpose was to share some of my personal favorites and why I like them. It wasn't meant as a bragging exercise.

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I have several photos of female cardinals I really like so it was difficult to choose just one. I like this one because of the feather detail and the overall peaceful look to the shot.

I have two versions of this scene. The one you see here and another with the heron in focus and the gulls blurred. I like them both, but in this photo it is pretty easy to tell the heron is a heron even though it's out of focus. I really like the reflection of the gulls on that narrow patch of ice which isn't as dramatic in the other version because the gulls are out of focus. The distance between the heron and the gulls was actually quite far, but because I used a big lens I was able to compress the distance and make them appear closer.

I have a couple of crow shots that are my personal favorites and it wasn't easy picking which one I was going to post. I like this one because of the way the wing is extended. I think of Ginsu blades. I also like how the crow is looking down and balanced on one leg. Plus, I like the uncluttered look of the photo.

You may or may not have noticed I haven't chosen many landscape or sky photos for the series. As I looked through my shots, I realized there really weren't many that stood out as favorites. Not in the way the wildlife photos do. This storm clouds photo, though, has always been one I really liked. The cloud hanging down in the center looks like a hornets nest which is, ironically, quite appropriate. I also like the area of light near the top and the overall angry look of the clouds.

This is definitely my favorite whitetail deer photo to date even though you can't see much of the deer. I ran into a doe and fawn while out hiking one day and they were curious enough to stick around. The doe walked into the woods and came toward me trying to figure me out. The auto focus was going haywire because of all the branches so I switched to manual and when the doe stopped, I snapped off a few shots. I like how you can see her eyes and ears, but most everything else is covered by the blurry branches. This is a photo where the subject in the center works pretty well.

This photo represents the best shots I have of any bird of prey. I see hawk photos all the time on other blogs, but I rarely see the birds when I'm out, much less get photos of them. This Red-tailed Hawk was sitting in an open field and, if you recall from my original post, I had to pull over and put my camera gear together. I thought for sure the hawk would fly off before I was ready, but it didn't and I got quite a few photos. I like the uncluttered background of the field and the profile of the hawk.