The winter nights are so clear and the air is so thin, in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The moon is nearly full and the entire area is washed in a lunar glow of pale, ghostly bluish-white. It is surreal, but is congruent with the cold: it is a colour that is the compliment of the temperature. It is the stuff of inspiration to artists, who see it in idealistic emotions that are devorced from the chill of the beautiful scene. Beneath a clump of rabbit brush the cold has settled around a small bird; a Fox sparrow. It has come down from the upper elevations of the Sierra Nevadas where the ground and surrounding flora is coated in yet another idealistic patina of white. Again it is beautiful but yet it is certain death for the sparrow: it is the reason it is under this bush, the air is cold, and seems to tease the warmth from the bird, but it can wait; wait for the Sun. The wait is longer at night, this time of year. But the Sun does, at last, break over the peaks from the East. With it a little, reluctant warmth is passed over the ground. The sparrow stirrs from the cover of the Rabbit brush, to makes it's way to a magical place where an abundace of food has been transformed from the ground, as if by magic. What boon this? But that is a question for a philosophic mind that has the luxury of contemplating such a mystery: for the sparrow the real luxury is that there will be nurisment. So it feeds and feeds, and feeds. There will be no such thing as being full. It will be cold again this night and all the energy against the cold is taken from the seed that covers the ground. Tonight, the sparrow will huddle against the cold again, but will survive on the ample stores in it's crop. When the night breaks with the next rise of the Sun the bird will go back to the strange patch of ground to find the " mana" that appears with the Sun...
Hello all: I've been away to Wofford Hts. for the last 3 weeks getting some much needed respite from the mundane world of routine. Nice to be back.
This image is in all manual mode. I'm experimenting with using power ratios with flash. Metering is in Averaging mode. That means that entire scene will be averaged; the light from BG will influence the metering the most. This might cause the bird to be under exposed; but flash is being used and, in this case, I am setting the flash at ratios of power rather than exposure compensation. It alows for more lattitude in the burst of light. The object here is to find a balance between what is metered by the camera and what the flash will iluminate. Since this is all manual there will be some trial and error. In this case the meter suggested an Ev of 1/640@ f 7.1. But, as the metering would render the bird under exposed, the flash is set at 1/8th power, and the camera compensated to -1.33 Ev. This will alow the BG to be rendered at what the camera suggests, but slightly under exposed to saturated colour; the bird will then be iluminated to compliment the BG rendering.
