And now for something completely different...

Something for anyone else other than me who likes solving puzzles.... My best time is 5 minutes. See if you can beat me!

Shooting Birds

Recently my friend Robyn, a super talented A Grade photographer, treated us to another one of her photographic masterpieces... Birds in Flight As Robyn points out in her blog, capturing birds in flight is a really tricky thing to do photographically so when she invited me to help her out with another one of her bird shoots last weekend I knew it would be a fun challenge. The plan: go down to Devonport, buy some fish and chips and use them as bait to attract some gulls. My job: hold out the chips for the birds to fly past and grab while Robyn captures them in action. I think when I agreed to this she forgot to mention some of these buggers are massive and REALLY powerful so when they swoop in to claim their reward you have to be sure they don't think it is your fingers they are having for dinner! It's a pretty cool experience feeding gulls by hand. I have always thought of them as screaming idiots but now that I have seen them up really close I have changed my mind. They are actually very beautiful when they are gliding through the air, especially so close. The other cool thing was borrowing one of Robyn's older digital cameras and having a go at shooting them myself. I haven't done much photography lately and I am pretty rusty but it didn't take me long to remember why I enjoy it (even if I am still only a lowly C Grader!) I am all fired up now to replace my Canon EOS500 with it's digital equivalent but unfortunately I don't have a spare $3'500 so it will have to wait until my business can afford to buy me one! Here are some of the birds I managed to capture on Robyn's camera.