I am, like most birding photographers, I presume, obsessed with getting closer and closer to birds. I only own a 300mm lens, something like 600mm would have been ideal for birding, especially in this instance. But here I am standing next to the restless ocean, photographing birds from a distance. And this got me thinking, with my obsession to always get closer, that some perspective is lost. We sometimes lose the privileged perspective these birds have. Inspiring millions to fly, these animals entice us with their advantaged views.
What would I give to fly over the oncoming oceans?
What would I give to get a birds-eye view of the mountains?
What would I give for their views?
The gulls sitting in their masses on the edge of the ocean, rest their wings and bodies for a while. The treacherous flights come to a brief end as they rejuvenate and regain their energy. Just to get back into the air to make the dangerous flights again and again. In search of food, fish get disorientated by the massive waves and the unlucky couple that did not swim away quickly enough.
Zooming in on the action, the gull is still small. Barely a couple of pixels in the photograph. And this stood out to me. I did not know if this was worth posting, but my philosophical mind took over.
Viewing the gull from so far away just puts into perspective the size of the waves and the size of the ocean. In a previous feathered friends post, I wrote about the enormous size of the whales we were watching compared to the small size of the small Karoo Prinia bird. But even the whales compared to these waves would look small. The vastness of the ocean is just amazing.
For a moment, I ceased the desire to get closer and closer; I embraced the distance. Birding is about getting those perfect shots of the bird, close-ups and the views that only a camera can get. But I relinquished these thoughts for a moment and embraced this distance that showcases the smallness of the bird compared to the vastness of the waves.
And despite the tremendous dangers of the ocean, the gull is relatively speaking safe. It has the privileged position of looking at these tremendous waves from above, in search of some food. We humans can only stand on the sideline trying to grasp the beauty, its awe-inspiring size, the sublime. We can only dream about the views, and yet, the gull does not even have the framework to comprehend and appreciate its beauty, size, and danger.
With so much ease and grace, the gull merely glides in the air above the white waves crashing down onto the beach. How does it even see the fish from its angle? How does it even recognise the small creature between the white foam?
Yet, it sees its target and pulls back its wings to lunge itself forward to its lunch or dinner. It catches something and eats it. Despite everything trying to survive, it manages to survive itself, odds stacked against it.
I stand back to view everything from afar again. The smallness of the gull screams at me. It pulls me. It pushes me. It takes me aback. I cannot fathom the scale, the size difference. The focus of the photograph is the bird, the tiny speck on the photograph in contrast to the rolling waves that continue to pummel down onto the beach. A constant in the ever-changing world.
Does the gull even see the vastness of the ocean or is it too focused on the little fish, like I am always too focused on the zoomed-in photograph of the bird?
The smallness of this gull does not really warrant it to be a part of birding. Yet it reminded me of taking a step backwards whilst birding to appreciate the "bigger picture", the scale of what we are witnessing. Every photograph is composed, it is not always staged, especially with wild animals. But it is always composed. We cut certain things out, zoom into other things. We force the viewer to see what we want them to see. They do not see life as it is, but as how I constructed it. By zooming out a bit, additional information can be given, it changes the photograph a bit.
Alas, I hope that even these zoomed-out photographs please your eyes as well. I think it is not always a perspective given, for obvious reasons of course!
Happy photographing and stay safe.
All of the photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and Tamron 300mm zoom lens. All of the musings are also my own, albeit inspired by the beauty that transpired in front of me.