for the birds. july 13, twenty twelve.

Last weekend I had an opportunity to attend a workshop, taught by Jerry Goffe, on bird photography…specifically, photographing hummingbirds. Now, I am not too interested in bird photography; I enjoy looking at photos of birds, but taking pictures of birds myself… Not so much. However, this being focused on hummingbirds, I jumped at the chance.

A while back, during a fishing trip in Northern New Mexico, I spent some time ATTEMPTING to photograph some hummingbirds. I won’t go in too much detail, but I failed; I took maybe 100 shots and got ONE that I was happy with. So I was looking forward to learning how to properly photograph hummingbirds from a professional.

The workshop itself was fairly short. I was very happy that we spent the majority of the time actually taking pictures. Jeff spoke, gave directions, and explained what the plan was in about 20 mins…next thing I knew, we were outside setting up to shoot.

I didn’t plan very well and left my long lens at home, I really thought I’d be ok with my 24-105 f/4…but I was wrong. Lucky for me, I was able to borrow one of Jeff’s lenses – Canon’s 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS; it’s a push/pull lens, which are not my favorite….but I really enjoyed using this lens!

There really isn’t much more to say, so here are a few of my photos: