Author: David Jenkins

It’s been a pretty quiet week at BirdsasPoetry Worldwide HQ.
We’ve not made any financial Take-over Offers, nor it seems have we been the subject of a Reddit share raid.

The weather has also been suitably unkind to those of us who ‘commit photography’, so it’s been home under the doona a couple more days.  Given our experience during the long lockdown because of the ‘c’ word, it hasn’t been too onerous.

It also seems that the majority of the birds we have been working with, have finalised their nesting cycles and are also settling into preparing the winter stretch.  Our local backyard Blackbird is already showing the signs of shedding her worn feathers and her mate has a strange bald patch above his beak and across his head, which I take to mean he too is getting ready to dress to impress as the cooler days come by.

One of the exceptions to this trend are the local White-plumed Honeyeaters, and we did discover quite a number of them during the week collecting cobweb for a fine new house among the leaves.

I called Mr An Onymous, and he informed me the Jawbone Great Crested Grebes had hatched, and so with his medical appointments and mine coinciding with a small blank space in both diaries, we locked into go looksee.

The two adults, one sitting on the nest, with still one egg to hatch, and the second one in the water feeding the infants with tiny fish and other assorted tiny water creatures, all looked good like very relaxed and adapted caring parents.

When I had a good look at the photos afterward, you know, ‘blowed up big on the screen to pixel-peep (I jest— insert smile and laughs here), I noted a small bald patch on the young as they peeked out from under the adults wing-feathers,

Closer inspection showed how much it looks like a “Love Heart”.  I presume its because the upper feathers fold down over the spot sufficiently to create the shape.

Interestingly Andew T. (follower of present blog) also sent around a note to the interested noting the same markings.

For the fanciful among us, perhaps it’s a special “Love” bond  between the parents and their tiny offspring.

I was rummaging through a box of books in the garage, you know, hoping I’d not thrown out the very book I now wanted, when I turned over a copy of “The Joy of Photography”, from Eastman Kodak Company. For those that have never heard of them, they used to make a product called, ‘filum’, back just at the beginning of the Jurassic Period. 🙂

I know that a number of the dear readers of this sometimes monotonous blog, were probably not ever born when the book first rolled from the presses. Kodak, among many of its tentacles, had a publishing arm, that specialised in ‘how-to’ books to help budding photographers learn some of the skills of the craft.  This of course was way back in the days before social media platforms spewed out erroneous, badly researched and often downright inaccurate information from keyboard experts who never actually ventured beyond their monitors to take, well, real, photos.
But,
I digress.

A quote in the introduction from noted photographer, Ernst Haas,“Art is Aristocratic—photography is its democratic voice.”, sets the scene or tenure of the book. (Please don’t tear off to ebay and buy a copy, much of it has to do with that aforementioned, ‘filum’ and the hardware and techniques to craft a photo back in the olden days.)

Based on the recent drift of my Saturday evening discourses, the opening page had a quote I thought worth repeating here. Hoping of course that the copyright of the text is beyond the statute of limitations or what ever controls text reuse these days.
Under the heading of “The Vision: The joy of photography is learning to see” the authors say:

“The world of photography is a personal one. We take pictures to express our feelings about people, nature, and the world around us. And as in any other art of communication, be it writing, music or art, we experience great pleasure when the results of our efforts communicate what we set out to say.”

There— couldn’t have said it better meself.
Sneaky little quote because the book is then divided into techniques for photographing:
People,
Nature,
The world around us.  🙂

It rambles on from there about ‘visually  articulate’, but if I have to look up words in a dictionary, I usually skip over them 🙂

We had the good fortune, and a little help from a few friends, to come upon pair of Great Crested Grebe at the Jawbone Reserve, in the middle of a nesting.
They had just exchanged sitting duties, and this one really needed to stretch out, bathe and relax. Once suitably damped, it needed to dry out the feathers.

En-Joy

Got a note from David DeChemin the other day.

He asks the best questions.
“Do you remember the first time you looked at a photograph and you saw how powerful they can be?”

“The thrill when you felt something and maybe couldn’t explain it.”

Well, I can’t recall the first photo I ever saw that had that stopping experience. I can, and I’ve mentioned it here before, recall the the moment I walked into a newsagents and there on the front counter display was Steve McCurry’s green-eyed “Afghan Girl”  on the cover of National Geographic. An image that has probably moved many people.

Likewise, Gene Smith’s “Tomoko in her bath”. I chose Paul Neil’s website version as he too talks about the impact of the photo on his photography. He also explains how the image has been withdrawn at the family’s request.

My list is a bit longer but the one image set that I think drove home to me how powerful photography can be as a story telling medium, occurred quite early in my ‘career’.

A noteworthy event happened in the country town I grew up in.  Many no doubt will have visited the Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement. (It was I think one of the very first of its genre in Victoria.)

The feature of the Settlement was to be the Paddle Steamer Gem.
Best ref I can find is a Pintrest series by the Pioneer Settlement. (No, sadly my pics are not there. 😦   )

As a very young photographer, I followed it for most of the day on its last journey as it was towed by the PS Oscar W.

Home I went, processed the film (It was a 120 roll shot with a Super Baldax camera), made some prints and my Dad helped to paste them on a board, which he took to work the following day.  Because of the interest of the moment, comments of course flowed.  And while memory is fading, I think I made a few prints to give to his work colleagues.
But what impressed me is, as David D says, “Photographs can touch us deeply. They can create experiences in our emotions and imaginations that we never forget.”

There is much said today about the best, “new camera, new lens, new software, new plugin”, and I fear that it is always going to be that way ,  while the art and craft of photography’s magic is put to the side while pursing the greatest, current, soon to be swept aside fashion- the next quick fix.

I’ve enjoyed the magic over so many years, and it still gives me goosebumps when an image  reveals, not just what I saw, but the way I saw it.

The Black-shouldered Kite was sitting quietly in the early morning light.  I could see the richness of the mist behind, the pearly mellowness that brings the subject’s character into a new view.  Took me awhile to manage to get the Lr sliders and effects working for me, but it was worth it to say, “this is the way I saw it.”
Magic.

Came across a Quote for the Day, today that used a Christian Holy Bible verse.

“…he went out, not knowing whither he went…”, The Letter to the Hebrews (Gotta love that King Jim English)-see ps below.
Tells the story of a dude in Mesopotamia that went out one morning and, well, just kept going.

Intrigued me, as I use a highly stylised version of Tolkien’s Aragorn poem,
“Not all those who wander are lost;” as a blog byline.

Seems to me  that no matter how well I can plan a day out with the birds, in the end so many times I don’t know what I am going to find.
Tolkien, “A light from the shadows shall spring”

Truth be told, there is a bit of the thrill of the chase. An acceptance that I am being invited into the lives of fascinating creatures.  The only thing I can be sure of is that the birds will have their lives to live and my small investigative muse- Lyric Poetry?- will have to welcome what is on offer.

Occasionally on the track armed with camera and gear a passerby will ask, (usually innocently)  “What are you doing?’ or more pointedly, “So, what are you photographing?” I’ve mentioned some of my usual responses before, but, really the answer is, “I’m waiting to see what the birds are doing!”
How else do you explain a sense of wonder?

So I bustle through the morning necessaries, getting ready to ‘Go out, not knowing wither I go!”, expectantly looking forward to a new opportunity  that is bigger than my vision of the world, and so much more exciting.

I trust that 2021 brings the most exciting visual opportunities to your lens.

PS: The original story in the Hebrew text says in the rather lyrical, “Lech Lecha”—can be roughly translated as “Go out to Yourself” as in an “internal odessey”

Now you know the extent of my  ancient text knowledge 😉