Sunday I decided to find something to photograph along the Fort Rupert Trail with my dog Benson, but we didn’t get very far up the trail when it started to rain/snow hard so I decided to do it another day.
By the time I made it back to the truck the weather had changed and it was all blue skies. I made the short trip to Storey’s Beach and noticed a heron off to the right on the beach and decided to hopefully get an image of it. I had to change to a telephoto lens on my camera and by the time I got this done, I looked up and it was gone. This was par for the course for me though, as I always have trouble getting heron images. Just as I was putting Benson’s leash on him I noticed the heron had moved to my left on the beach and it was even closer than before. I told Benson he was going to have to wait in the truck for a bit while I got this image. I just knew the heron would have bolted if it had seen him.
I stealthily snuck behind a couple of logs on the beach and, when it wasn’t looking, I moved closer. It was perfect. The light was just over my right shoulder and illuminating the beach nicely. I metered on the heron and did a test shot. I wanted to get an image of the heron fishing and have the shutter speed fast enough to freeze the heron as it darted for a fish. I bumped up the ISO to 800, set the frames per second to high, and then metered the heron again. ISO 800, f8, shutter speed 1/2000 sec. Success at last!
Douglas Bradshaw has lived in the North Island for 33 years. He is a Landscape and Wildlife photographer based out of Port Alice B.C. His website is portalicephoto.com follow him on YouTube and Facebook at Port Alice Photography, Images by Douglas Bradshaw