Sunday, April 24, 2011

Mute Swans and Evening Abstracts

On an evening walk along the shore, I noticed two Mute Swans, an adult and a well-grown juvenile, incongruously positioned on the vast tract of sand that is Swansea Beach. I thought perhaps one of the two, which was sitting down throughout, was injured. In fact, as I approached to investigate, I realised it wasn't injured; just lazy! I was able to get quite close and take a few pictures with my 500mm lens:



A close-up of the 'lazy' adult:


The duller-beaked juvenile:


And the adult with a small feather on its beak:


Soon, the sun disappeared over the horizon, and I decided to try to capture the 'essence' of the scene before me, without any distracting details. To this end, I moved the camera from one side to another during an exposure of about two seconds to create these effects:



It's a bit of a hit-or-miss technique, but it was worth a try!

2 comments:

  1. I particularly like the close-up of your 'lazy adult'. Thank you for explaining about the muted (no pun intended!) beak of the juvenile.

    Your final shots would make good abstract paintings of the Gower coast!

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