Sometimes You Just Need To Change Your Perspective

Over the last couple of days I have had some fun photographing a hummingbird that has been hanging out at my feeder. The first day that I made photos of it was during the rain we had on Tuesday. I made the photo at the bottom of this post. I was pretty happy with the tongue out, but my neighbors white house in the bokeh made for a bad background. Then I did something crazy. I pulled out my folding chair that I sit on out back and stood on it to make the photo directly below this paragraph. The grass was a good background, but I didn’t like the high angle. The next day I found a window that let me make a photo of the hummingbird with the distant trees as my background. I made the photo above that leads off this post. The first and last photos that I made of this bird are essentially the same pose, but the one at the top of the post just pops a little more. Sometimes a change of perspective can go a long way.

Work The Scene

Early on in my photography journey I watched a video on Netflix called At Close Range. It followed National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore through a couple of his photo trips. He would talk about working the scene to find the best photo. That has stuck with me throughout my photography journey. When you think that you have a good photo you then can try and make it better. By working the photo you sometimes end up with something much better that you never would have thought of.