Today’s Photo from Ted Grussing Photography: … a bright spot in the wild

… I stopped at the ponds yesterday on my way home from Cottonwood and was first greeted by Blue Birds as I left the parking lot and then a very bright spot of red caught my attention! A male Vermilion Fly Catcher was busy feeding at the ponds. Like other flycatchers this brilliant red treat searches for flying insects from a perch, makes a short flight to get them and then returns to the perch. This makes it relatively easy to get multiple opportunities to get a good shot. They are very tiny birds, the signal that they are about to takeoff is about half what the human reaction time is, so getting the takeoff shots are nearly impossible, UNLESS, you have pre-capture which rolls back time .5 seconds from the time you fully depress the shutter button. Human reaction time is about .25 seconds so at 30 frames per second you can pick up about 7 shots of the bird after you recognize that he is taking off. Mostly if you are close, birds will take off going away from you (a threat), but the 800 mm lens allows me to get far enough away that if I am facing them they will frequently fly directly at me and the image of them is big enough to save and process.

The top shot of our brightly covered friend shows him perched on a metal stake above one of the ponds. The second one shows the wings extending as he pushes off from the stake and the third one he is in flight and targeting the insect (s) that he is going for. Absolutely made my day!

The photo below is close to the San Francisco Peaks … one of my favorite places to do ridge soaring going back and forth between Humphreys Peak and Agassiz Peak. To get these shots I crank out from the mountain and am pointing away from them so I can get the shot out of the side vent … then a hard left back to the mountain and in this case another right to re-establish myself in the up flow and continue along the ridge line which as you can see dips a little before rising to Agassiz off in the distance. Couldn’t get good shots shooting directly to the front as the canopy was curved and a light green tint … plus when flying close to the mountain it is not a good idea to concentrate on any thing but the flying! Fun. Love the texture and patterns in the snow pack created some fierce winds at the top.

To learn more about soaring go to the Soaring Society of America website and maybe, just maybe, the idea of pure flight will interest you and they can help you find places near you to learn to soar … just you, the atmosphere and your knowledge of how to work the atmospheric conditions, stay in the air and actually go somewhere … it is one the greatest experiences of my life with about 3000 hours doing it.

Have a beautiful day … new adventures tomorrow, but first some rest … likely 6 shots of espresso around 3:30AM and then back to sleep for a few hours … I love those quiet hours!

Cheers

Ted

Love some one—in God’s name love some one—
for this is the bread of the inner life, without which
a part of you will starve and die; and though you feel
you must be stern, even hard, in your life of affairs,
make for yourself at least a little corner, somewhere
in the great world, where you may unbosom and be
kind.

Love Some One by Max Ehrmann

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The easiest way to reach Mr. Grussing is by email: ted@tedgrussing.com

In addition to sales of photographs already taken Ted does special shoots for patrons on request and also does air-to-air photography for those who want photographs of their airplanes in flight. All special photographic sessions are billed on an hourly basis.

Ted also does one-on-one workshops for those interested in learning the techniques he uses.  By special arrangement Ted will do one-on-one aerial photography workshops which will include actual photo sessions in the air.

More about Ted Grussing …