Hypnotic Photos Show the Flight Paths of Birds and Bats
Stifled by lockdown, photographer Doris Mitsch began to look up for inspiration and started photo-stacking bird flight paths with the editing sometimes taking her days to finish.
Stifled by lockdown, photographer Doris Mitsch began to look up for inspiration and started photo-stacking bird flight paths with the editing sometimes taking her days to finish.
Murmurations are always a beautiful sight to behold, but photographer James Crombie managed to capture a giant flock of starlings at just the perfect moment: formed in the shape of a giant bird.
Black Sun is an ongoing project by Danish photographer Søren Solkær, who began visiting the marshlands of southern Denmark a few years ago to capture the mesmerizing starling murmurations that comprise up to a million birds.
Spanish photographer Xavi Bou has spent years capturing the movements of murmurations (or flocks) of starlings through chronophotography, a type of stacked long-exposure. His latest effort is this 2.5-minute short film titled "Murmurations," which traces the mesmerizing flight patterns of the synchronized birds.
Photographer Ariel Leshinsky of Beersheba, Israel, has spent a couple of years photographing starling murmurations, those mesmerizing, swarm-like flocks. But Leshinsky adds a dose of creativity: he aims to capture and select moments when the random swarms look like recognizable things... like the "seal" in the photo above.
A European starling murmuration is one of the most beautiful natural phenomena on Earth—each bird reacting to its 7 closest neighbors, the whole flock an ever-shifting mix of patterns and shapes. So how in the world could you recreate something that intricate with stop motion photography?
A murmuration of starlings is a beautiful sight to behold, as giant flocks of birds float through the air like a dark cloud with a mind of its own. French photographer Alain Delorme captured this beauty in his project Murmurations, but instead of birds and wildlife photography, Delorme's images were created through plastic bags and Photoshop.
There are a few good reasons why you should go about getting in touch with a photographer before using his or her work. Even if they're okay with blogs and news outlets pick up the work without their permission (not saying they should be, but some are) you might be missing some critically important information about the series.
Such is the case with artist Alain Delorme's series "Murmurations," because these photographs that circulated the web initially as beautiful captures of starling flocks (better known as murmurations) in amazing shapes aren't actually photos of birds at all... the images are manipulations comprising of thousands of plastic bags made to look like starling murmurations.
If you're maintaining any of kind bucket list of things you'd like to experience before you die, you might want to think about putting "a massive murmuration of starlings" on that list. That's what Paris-based director and photographer Neels Castillon was treated to recently, and his video documenting the encounter has been making waves on the web.
Sophie Windsor Clive was canoeing on the River Shannon in Ireland when she came across one of nature's most beautiful phenomenon: a murmuration of starlings. This is when vast numbers of starlings fly together in giant, cloud-like formations. Luckily for Sophie, she had her camera handy.