San Angelo and South Llano State Parks Update

A good friend & fellow blind photographer passed on the following information regarding these two shooting locations:

San Angelo State Park: Heavy numbers of doves (assuming that it's both White-winged and Mourning), though there are quite a few juveniles making the rounds. Specifically Northern Cardinals and Pyrrhuloxia, but also a young Curve-billed Thrasher. Also present in the blind area have been orioles and Northern Bobwhite Quail. This makes me happy as there were good numbers of juvenile quail from last year that were making the rounds before I left and I'm happy to hear that they're surviving the summer.

South Llano River State Park: The only thing really said was that the Painted Buntings are thick this year.

Thanks for the updates, Bill, even though in both cases it makes me yearn for home...

Image: Juvenile Northern Cardinal (male), San Angelo State Park (Sept 2008), © Jim Miller

Where has the time gone? And where have I gone? And why am I talking in the 3rd person?

Okay, I've neglected this blog quite a bit, but I do have a reason (or an excuse). Back in early January I mentioned in this post that I took the Graduate Review Exam® and did really well. Well, for the purposes of this blog, I did too well. But for my life in general I did well enough, thank you. I was accepted for a very selective graduate degree program up in Ohio--one of 9 people in the country to get picked up for the program. No, it wasn't an MFA program in photography--that will have to wait for another few years...

But the time frame that I had to leave in was incredibly short. So short that I left the blog sitting idle while I got moving north and have been up to my neck in it since I arrived.

So what happens to the blog? Awful good question. Obviously my weekly trips to San Angelo State Park just aren't going to happen, though I am working some things in the background to hopefully make things better for y'all in the coming years.

I will be making semi-regular trips back to West Texas to take care of business and financial matters. And when I go back, undoubtedly my camera and tripod will be in tow. I expect that after I complete this degree program and meet the contractual obligations that came with it that I will be back somewhere in west Texas, most likely in San Angelo.

I have a small circle of photographer friends who have offered to periodically feed me information about what is going on in the blinds, but I am actively looking for others who will tell me about their experiences. You can always contact me through the address for the blog: blindblog@jmillerphoto.com. No need to be as verbose as I have been over the last year or so. A quick description of conditions at the blind and a list of what you saw and I will do the rest and provide you credit and a mention for your web site or online gallery (i.e. Flickr, Smug Mug, etc) to show off the images that you made.

I have also put the offer out to a number of the private ranches that offer blinds that I will publicize events going on at their ranches or even do status updates of what is showing up to their blinds at no cost. I'm a big fan of these folks and if I can add a little free advertising for these folks, all the much better.

I will also, as I come upon them, highlight similar birding structures where I am in Ohio and venturing into Indiana and Kentucky since both are very close. I have a line on one bird blind near Cincinnati and I am still exploring other possibilities, though admittedly my free time is very limited.

So stay tuned and send in your info...

Image: Green Heron, Eastwood Metropark, Dayton, Ohio ©2009 Jim Miller

Workshop Opportunity - April 30th-May 3rd

Sean Fitzgerald is putting on a photography workshop at the Fennessey Ranch, just north of Corpus Christi, during the extended weekend of April 30th to May 3rd. I'm a big fan of Sean's work and I've heard outstanding things about Fennessey Ranch. The blinds are outstanding and undoubtedly some of Sean's magic will rub off over the time of the workshop. Sadly other obligations will keep me from attending (more on that in the coming days). You can find more info about the workshop here. Price is just $675 for the weekend and it comes with a certificate for an additional day of shooting in the blinds at Fennessey Ranch.

March 21st Report - San Angelo State Park

Good morning in the blind. I had hoped to get out and about this weekend to someplace other than the same old thing, but family obligations and a very sore wrist kept me from traveling very far. I'm scheduled for another appointment for the wrist sometime in the next couple of weeks so hopefully we'll get to the bottom of that one--it's eating into my photography time ;)

But since I was more or less stuck in San Angelo (though happily stuck, may I add), and the light looked to be perfect, I headed out to the park to see what I could see.

Light was outstanding. Maybe a little bright at first and certainly the quality of the light changed often during my time in the blind. But it was almost universally good and only my impatience and knowing I had other things to accomplish on Saturday kept me from staying longer. Start time of actual shooting was around 8:25 and I stayed exactly 2 hours. Body count of the images was just south of 270 images and most of them were very good. The only significant mistake that I made was that I went to ISO 400 early in the morning because the shutter speeds were getting below 1/80th. As things brightened I did not go back to drop the ISO back to 200. With the 30D this is not a huge issue--noise is minimal at ISO 400. But at 200 it is far better.

First image of the day was a male Northern Cardinal. Last image was a Red-winged Blackbird. In between was a good variety of the standard late winter/early spring birds. The Orange-crowned warbler made his appearance and the small covey of Northern Bobwhites made an appearance as well with at least 5 being in the blind area at once. Pyrrhuloxia were out in large numbers as well, probably outnumbering the Northern Cardinals which is a very unusual occurrence. House Sparrows are becoming more abundant, though White-crowned sparrows are still out in force. If last year is any indication, the White-crowns should be starting to make their way elsewhere over the next few weeks. No repeat performances though from the Greater Roadrunner or the Golden-fronted Woodpecker and I haven't seen the Ladderbacks in weeks.

Again, a good shooting experience in the blind--well worth being stuck in town again.

Images:
Red-winged Blackbird (Female), San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller
Pyrrhuloxia (Male), San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller

So what do you shoot with?

I've been putting off this discussion for a long time, but I'd be a poor blogger if I continued to procrastinate on this one. After all, this is a blog about photography.

The question I get asked the most often when I'm at craft fairs or other venues where my prints are being displayed is, "What do you shoot with?"

I hate answering the question because there's a lot of folks who think that the camera is the key to everything that is important, and the dummy behind the camera doesn't really do much. So honestly, I talk down the equipment that I shoot with. I will talk about how old it is or that it's not the biggest/baddest thing on the block and that the camera itself is not that important. I'm not believed very often, even though it is true that I shoot with a relatively modest setup.

I also used to emphasize that a camera was just a box that we let light into and it really didn't matter what you were shooting because it was that dummy behind the camera that did the work. And I can't say that this is always the case.

Yes, that sounds contradictory, but it's not. Let me explain.

The advances that we've made in clarity, speed, and ISO sensitivity in the last 10 years of digital photography is incredible. So much progress has been made that it allowed for the near total extermination of film camera production. There has not been a significant pro or prosumer level camera put out in over 5 years. In the early days, the word was we'd need somewhere between 24-30 megapixel cameras to match the quality of film images. We now do with 6-8Mp that which we said was impossible--make a 11x14 print that compared favorably with a print made from Kodak Gold 100 or Fujichrome Velvia 50. Cameras have gotten that good.

But at the same time, I will tell you that you can no more give a fine set of brushes to a first year art student and expect them to make a gallery quality painting than you can give a top end camera to a novice and expect that image to be on the front of Sports Illustrated.

I will tell you that a photographer with a modest amount of experience using solid photographic technique will create a much better image with my Canon 30D than with my Canon 10D. ISO and sensor performance between the two cameras was incredible. Both will make good images and up to a certain size print (probably 8x10) it would be tough to tell the difference between the two. But look at it on a PC and the difference will be painfully obvious.

But at the same time, hundreds of thousands of dollars were made with images made from the 10D. Hundreds of thousands probably continue to be made with images made from the 30D even though it is now nearly 3 years old and the 50D has nearly double the megapixels. These cameras make awesome images.

So what do I shoot with? My camera body is a Canon 30D. I bought the battery grip after the fact and am very happy I did.

More important is what lens do I put in front of that camera. And for that you'll have to wait for the next installment. And eventually I'll even get to why it's important to the art of shooting from a blind.

March 15th Report - San Angelo State Park

Another weekend happily stuck in San Angelo. Concho Valley Photography Club has their meetings on the 2nd Saturday of the month. Another organization that I'm a member of has their meetings on the 3rd Sunday of the month. This year March just happens to combine those into one happy stew. February did as well, but due to a scheduling issue they ended up on different weekends, but I digress.

So with a weekend that would be San Angelo bound, and with some work related things keeping me relatively close to home, it was definitely going to be San Angelo State Park for my weekend visit.

I went out relatively early Sunday morning and after doing some volunteer-related items I was able to get to shooting at about 8:30am.

The light was kind of tricky to work with. It started with significant overcast, but with enough light to work at 400 ISO. As the morning progressed it became more of a hide and go seek approach where the light was good, then too bright, then okay, and then very subdued all over a very short period of time.

My biggest issues Sunday morning was a lack of warm clothing and a lack of patience. Temps inside the blind were in the low 40's and I had not adequately planned for the outing, making it very uncomfortable. This lack of warm clothing likely added to my lack of patience as I spent less than an hour and a half in the blind. But even at that I made some nice images.

Species spread was good. No wrens in the blind and only 1 of the 2 woodpecker species (Golden-fronted) made a visit in. But cardinals were running pretty good and there were numerous Pyrrhuloxia visitors. We also had visits by both a male Northern Bobwhite and a Greater Roadrunner, though the Roadrunner was far more camera shy than the Bobwhite.

Hawks continue to make the rounds at the blind, causing massive fly-offs and periods of inactivity at the blind lasting 10-15 minutes.

No physical laundry list--I left my copy in the blind.

Images:
Brown-headed Cowbird, San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller
Northern Bobwhite, San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller

March 7th Report - San Angelo State Park

After getting my car out of the shop this week I had every intention to go to South Llano River State Park. But as I've quoted on this blog before (with respect and credit to Robert Burns), "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." I won't go into the particulars, but it involved both my normal Monday to Friday job and my photography sales side gig.

But, as luck would have it the weather was perfect for the sun-challenged blind that is the blind at San Angelo State Park. Saturday's forecast called for mostly to completely cloudy skies and the weatherman did not disappoint.

I got out to the blind at about 8:00 and after taking care of some things in the blind area under the auspices of my relationship with Friends of San Angelo State Park, I was ready to rock and roll.

First bird into the camera was a Curve-billed Thrasher. Unusual for a first bird, but I wasn't complaining. As the morning went on it was obvious that there was not one but two Curve-billed Thrashers making the rounds in the blind. Since there are minimal differences between the males and females and since Curve-billed's aren't exactly the most flock-like species, my guess is that they are a mating pair. Again, that's my guess. I'm not an ornithologist nor do I play one on TV.

No laundry list for this visit. Very narrow species spread. No titmice this time around. Cardinals and Pyrrhuloxia were around but were not in huge numbers. Lots and lots of Red-winged Blackbirds.

I made just under 200 exposures in my two hours out at the blind.

Images:
White-winged Dove, San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller
Curve-billed Thrasher, San Angelo State Park, ©2009 Jim Miller