Hawk Season is around the Corner!

It won't be long, and the red-tailed hawks will be ready for some shooting!! One of my favourite times of the year for photography. Click on the image, and then use your back button to return to the website!! thanks for looking!!

Still some openings!

The October 4th and the October 17, 2009 Workshops have a few openings., more info here on the workshops page!!

If you have any questions, please email me here... ray@raymondbarlow.com ... or call my cell here.... 905 520 8853.

The fall colours sould be a lot of fun to work with as you can see in the photo below.

Just Published!

My latest article just published here in Ontario's favourite Birding publication... please order your subscription here....Published 4 times a year
Subscription is 11.00 per year, includes GST.

Ontario Birding News
661 Champlain Drive
Cornwall ON., Canada
K6H 6H9
613 938 1849
Page 1 .......................................................Page 2

Lots of new Stuff on my Workshops page

October is always a busy month for me., fall colours and beautiful birds are always a great combination. We have several programs lined up for October, and I invite you to browse through them and get involved if your interested.

I am working on a new Workshop for October 4Th, that will involve a morning and afternoon shoot at 2 different locations. More news on that one by the weekend.

Check out the programs Here!!

There is a discount *Special* for One on One workshops from now until October 1st., please let me know if you want to make plans.

Lots going on, keeping me busy here organizing!!

ray@raymondbarlow.com

Latest Workshop at Mountsberg

We sure had a good time up at Mounstberg this past weekend Megan, Becky, Harry and Leigh all seems to enjoy the owls and the learning experience. We started a bit earlier then usual this time with our first bird coming out to see us at 9 am. A bright sunny morning left us working in a shades area with lots of surrounding trees for backgrounds.

The birds behaved wonderfully, our handler Sandra was awesome. Sandra and her partner bring the birds out one by one, setting them on pre-organized perches. We try to move the perches around for different angles, backgrounds, and hopefully some good head positions.

Working in the shade gives less opportunity for over exposed highlights., and the colours of these birds really seem to explode onto your monitor. After spending some time studying Eric Meola's work, I can see that the concept of working the colours of the scene is extremely important.


I want to thank my guests whom attended this workshop, and I really do look forward to the next one, coming very soon!
More images on my home page .. www.raymondbarlow.com

thanks for looking!!

Great Blue Heron trying to act like a Hawk!

I have watched and followed Great Blue Herons during the late summer for years, and known them to be primarily fish eaters, but this latest experience with a mouse was fun to watch! The bird has it's usual hunting style, but in a field, I am sure it is not as easy as in a pond.

After watching and shooting for about an hour, it finally succeeded, and caught the breakfast and flew off. the light was not great, but the fun experience was worth the effort!

I spent most of my time in the truck, as this bird seemed pretty comfortable as a slow approach worked well. Slow movements inside the truck, and using my arm as a rest on the window frame gave the camera kit some stability.

Unfortunately, the bird was facing away from the sun while taking in the mouse., it was some fun shooting as the mouse must have put up a good fight, so about 20 frames later, we had our catch!

Be sure to click on the images for a larger view... and also check out NIOM for some really fine recent articles.

take care, Ray Barlow

Canon 7D

My friend Romy Ocon has a pre-production Canon 7D... a link to some images taken this weekend here...

http://www.pbase.com/liquidstone/7d_preprod

Update.. Sept. 15Th Romy posted a video of a bee-eater with the new 7D... http://www.pbase.com/liquidstone/image/117262742

I don't get out much!!

But when I got out shooting with my friend Leigh Bierd, we do have some fun. Leigh, along with Daisy and Maria, hooked up for some scouting around the local areas Today (Sunday) and we came across this cool Yellow legs ( not sure on the ID) in the morning light. We played around by switching lenses, and crawling closer in the mud. I tried my 1.7 tc, and got nothing, as the tripod was in the truck, and my hands are not as steady as they used to be!

Thanks for another great day Leigh!

In honor of the people who lost their lives on 911

911 really shook me up., I think it took me 3 weeks before I snapped out of it., what a horrendous event in the history of USA. This isn't much to offer, but I will be posting a few images here that anyone may copy to their desktop, and use as a background image., they are sized for laptops.. 1280 x 800 x 72 dpi....

For all those who were lost, and their families.

1/100 sec., @ f14?

Please click on the image for a larger view, and use your back button to return to this page.

Yes, believe it or not... I was playing around in manual mode, taking frames of this really cool sunrise. even the camera was set to Afs (static) for still images. Everything was wrong, the worst techs I can imagine, but I still was able to save this shot.

thanks for looking!!

Out to the Sandhills

Had an early morning to catch the sunrise this morning with my friend Leigh, here is an image I edited this afternoon., hope to add a few more when I have time to get at it!!Just click on an image to see the larger size. I was so busy trying to catch a nice sunrise image I missed the sand hills fly out shot... well, I didn't totally miss it, I shot them at 1/100 of a sec @ f14!!! manual exposure, and AFS (static) setting for the AF., so I really blew it. I still might try to edit one., just wish my sensor was clean!





PS.. my sandhill crane images are a mess!! I might edit 1!!!

Out with my new friend Leigh

I spend last Friday with one of the nicest guys I have met in years, Leigh Bierd. We were out doing a one on one workshop for a day and ran across this pond late in the afternoon on an overcast summer day. We saw a Great Blue Heron in this pond when we arrived, it quickly flushed out of the pond.

Leigh and I had a fun filled day, lots of travelling, some photoshop training and some fun shooting. We were able to get onto a very young Red-tailed Hawk not far from the house here in Grimsby, and Leigh was able to catch some nice frames while using my 200-400 VR., so here is Leigh's very nice image.

The pond at the end of the day was a cool shoot, I decided to try a pano image by collecting 3 images of the pond, left, center, and right. I imported the files into photoshop and used the auto stitching to create this image.

Just click on the images for a larger view., and thanks for looking!

The Girls at the Rock

A recent trip to Rock Point came up empty for the anticipated shore birds, so my backup plan was in place., working with my 2 cameras and 2 lenses. Here are a few from the shoot...

This first image was taken with the D300 + 200-400 VR., a candid shot when I was about 80 yards away from them., Maria had just finished a swim in Lake Erie.

This second image, using the D70s and 18-70 ED, the girls were asked to pose on the driftwood... it is hard to keep them apart, and i did need to give them some keen direction to bring a little space between their bodies! Looking back at the scene, I think I should have worked with the sky more, rather then the leaves on the trees.

In this third scene, Maria displays her adventurous spirit, as she loves to hike and climb. Exploring nature is her favourite kind of fun, and the seriously extensive knowledge of plants, bugs, birds, and wildlife is evident in all of our conversations.

I am moving away from posting my new and latest images on pbase, and hope to get into a routine where this blog becomes the first location for my latest images.

take good care, and thanks for looking!!

Another Workshop with my new friend Myrtle!

I spent the day yesterday with Myrtle whom is from Newmarket., wow we sure had a lot of fun... this kind of "intense training" is a lot of hard work, we started at 6:45 am, and finished around 8 pm with a full day of educating and on site shooting. Myrtle was a lot of fun, she had great knowledge of photography in gereral, but wanted to fine tune her wildlife skills and photoshop editing skills.

There is a lot to learn, and it takes years of hard study to become a serious nature phtographer. I try to share the experiences, and knowledge with my customers, and give them good value for their dollar.

At the end of our day we were able to get some nice images of these Red-necked Grebes displaying their territorial "bark!" it sure was some fun shooting.

For more details concerning my one on one workshops, please click the link below, or here!!

Take good care.