January 2010 Photo of the Month

Common Mergansers, Grand Teton National Park, WY © Jay Goodrich

This month I was looking for something I haven’t posted a ton of lately…a wildlife image. I have been really focused on landscape photography for some reason and that barely touches the gammut of what I shoot. I captured this image last spring while working on a project about Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. What really intrigued me about this scene is the colors and textures generated in the water while these common mergansers were feeding at Oxbow Bend in Grand Teton National Park. The textures are a little bit distracting, but I feel by being confusing, they draw the viewer right to the heart of the image the – the wildlife. Two other things came together in this photograph to help with its design – the overcast conditions which created those textures and the fact that the birds all lined up in a row. Captured with a Canon 1D Mark III, 600mm f4 lens, 1.4x teleconverter, Wimberley Head II, Gitzo tripod. Mastered in Lightroom and Photoshop.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 12:42 am. It is filed under photo of the month. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.