It’s not uncommon to walk past the rows of bushes and shrubberies on the Oklahoma State University campus and see birds sitting on top of them, just kind of hanging out and going about their day. The problem, from a photographic perspective, is that these little avian friends often flutter away before I can get close enough to take their picture. Not always, but most of the time, and as a result it’s just not easy to get the kind of shots that I’m often going for. Not with the lenses I usually have with me, anyway. So when I saw this feather resting where its owner once sat, I thought I might as well use it as the next best thing to actually capturing an image of a bird.
The basic idea with this composition is really, really simple. It’s a single easily-identifiable subject set against a blurry background. There’s nothing else to distract the viewer, and in that sense it’s also kind of boring and pedestrian. And yet, there’s a sense of activity present because of the nature of the subject. You get the feeling that the feather could flit away at the slightest breeze, and you just so happen to be catching a glimpse of it before it disappears. So while it’s not exactly groundbreaking in terms of how the shot is composed, there’s still something of value here and I like the sense of peace and calm that it tends to instill.
I shot this with my 105mm macro lens at f/5.6 to get the depth of field under control, and if you click through on the image to the original file on Flickr you’ll see a ton of detail in the individual white strands on the feather–the kind of thing you just can’t capture with a mobile phone. You might also notice how the feather seems to be resisting the wind ever so slightly, with some strands bent one way and others bent in the opposing direction. It all lends to the overall sense of kinetic energy while at the same time seeming still and composed.
This is one of those pictures that, like others I have shared recently, is just fun to take. It’s not going to upend the photography world, but I enjoy the result and I got to practice my image-creation skills so that’s a win in my book :)