birdphotography

Winners of the 10th Annual Audubon Photography Awards Revealed

The National Audubon Society has revealed the winners of its 10th annual Audubon Photography Awards: a competition that showcases the most incredible bird photography from across North America. The 2019 winners were selected from over 2,253 entrants who submitted from all 50 states, Washington D.C., and 10 Canadian provinces and territories.

I Photograph Birds in My Backyard by Setting Up Stages

Last year I joined my local photography club. The club holds regular competitions and I was amazed by the quality of the bird and wildlife photographs. I've never been much of a natural history photographer. So it's not surprising that my own photographs did very poorly in competitions.

The Photographer Who Shoots Wildlife in European Cities

Bristol, UK-based Sam Hobson is a wildlife photographer with a difference from others: he primarily shoots wildlife that he can find in and around cities: foxes, badgers, deer, toads, squirrels, herons, ravens, pigeons, goshawks, falcons, gulls and others.

Photographing the Hula Valley, Rest Stop for Half a Billion Birds Every Year

The Hula is an agricultural region located in northern Israel with abundant fresh water. It is a major stopover for various birds’ migration path along the Syrian-African Rift Valley between Africa, Europe, and Asia. An estimated half a billion birds are passing through the Hula Valley every year.

Field Test: Bird Photography with the Canon 7D II and 300mm f/2.8 II

I'm a hobbyist bird photographer and I recently went birding in the Himalayan foothills in India, to a town called Sattal. For the trip, I rented a Canon 7D Mark II, 300mm f/2.8 II, and 2X TC III teleconverter. My own equipment is a 7D and 100-400L, both of the first generation.

Portraits of Birds Bursting with Personality

As a child photographer, Leila Jeffreys was taught to take in wounded animals, particularly birds, and nurse them back to a healthy state. It was through experiences like this that Jeffreys grew a personal fascination and even greater appreciation for the intricacies of these creatures.

And now she’s paying a tribute of sorts to her knowledge and love for those animals, by bringing owls, eagles, budgies, cockatiels and more into her studio to showcase their varied personalities.

Photog Documents the Illegal Hunting of Songbirds Along the Mediterranean

AP Photographer David Guttenfelder is a conflict photographer. He's spent much of his photographic career capturing war through the lens of his camera. One thing he certainly never considered himself was a bird photographer.

But when he was sent on an assignment to illustrate a National Geographic piece on the illegal hunting of songbirds, he became one. And it slowly dawned on him that he wasn't just doing a documentary, environmental, or conservation piece -- this was simply another form of conflict photography.

Beautiful Studio Portraits of Birds in Flight

Photographer Paul Nelson spends the majority of his time shooting commercial work for big name clients like MAC Cosmetics or Target. But when the flow of work began to slow to a trickle over the past couple of years, he embarked on a personal project that he hoped would remind him why he loved photography.

Thus was born Aviary. Shot in partnership with Springbook Nature Center, the photo series captures beautiful studio-style portraits of birds taking flight as they're released back into the wild.

Gotta Catch ‘Em All: Photog Spends Eight Years Capturing the 39 Birds of Paradise

If you've ever played any of the Pokémon video games, you probably know it feels like to spend hours or days trying to capture a rare monster in order to fill in another entry in your Pokédex. National Geographic photographer Tim Laman knows that feeling through his photography project titled Birds of Paradise. Laman spent a whopping eight years photographing all 39 birds-of-paradise species in the rainforests of New Guinea -- the first time it has ever been done.

The Invention of the Pigeon Camera for Aerial Photography

We've featured a couple of projects involving cameras strapped to birds recently (see here and here), but photographing with birds is anything but a new idea. It was actually invented a little over a century ago, in 1907, by a German photography pioneer named Julius Neubronner.

This Muddy Nikon D3 Shows the Benefits of Weather Sealing

Photographer JP Cariño experienced the awesomeness of pro DSLR weather sealing when doing bird photography from a floating blind:

I spent an hour at the least in the water. This "accident" happened in the first 10 minutes because of my poor floating blind design. Seeing the birds were so cooperative I decided to go on shooting. From time to time, I had to pour water from the swamp on the LCD so I could view my photos. When I surfaced, I took out the battery and started cleaning the body. I placed the camera in my dry cabinet when I got home and started it up the next day. No issues whatsoever. Works perfectly fine. All the seals worked and the compartments (cf, terminals and batt) had no dirt in it. I guess you really get what you pay for with pro camera bodies. [#]

You know you're a hardcore outdoor shooter when you're pouring swamp water onto your camera to clean it.