Episode 23: Tundra Swans and Mastering Birds in Flight

• For birds, wind dictates everything

• Studying wind speed and direction can have dramatic impacts on your photography if you pair that knowledge with an understanding of light and your backgrounds

• In order to move beyond creating cliche and trite images of birds in flight, we have to begin exorcizing creative compositional strategies

• Sometimes the most beautiful images come about as we are forced to overcome challenges in the field

Kicking off season 2 of the PhotoWILD Podcast, Jared and Annalise discuss spending a week immersing themselves in the world of tundra swans along the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Each winter, around 100,000 tundra swans descend upon this region after migrating from their breeding grounds along the edge of the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea, creating one of the greatest wildlife spectacles of the eastern United States. The swan migration can offer wildlife photographers non-stop birds in flight opportunities with these visitors from the arctic each year.

In season 1, Jared and Annalise discussed photographing birds in flight on several different episodes from how artificial intelligence is changing the face of flight photography, to rarely considered impact that contrasting colors have on the success of birds in flight.

But mastering birds in flight requires so much more than just sophisticated autofocus systems and matching the background to the color of the bird. In fact, of all the many facets of this style of photography it is perhaps understanding the interplay of wind direction, light direction, and backgrounds that will do more for your bird in flight compositions than anything else.   

Bird in Flight Episodes from Season 1

Episode 4: Pelagic Seabirds in Panama

https://www.photowildmagazine.com/episode-20

Episode 16: Artificial Intelligence and how it's revolutionizing birds in flight

https://www.photowildmagazine.com/podcast/episode-16-artificial-intelligence-and-how-it-is-revolutionizing-birds-in-flight

Articles

The Best Lenses for Birds in Flight

https://photowildmagazine.com/free-articles/the-best-lenses-for-birds-in-flight