Over the Shoulder

Metod,

Thank you for the kind compliments. By the way, I believe that that is a rock and not a tree. At times it is a real effort to work with birds and other animals to try to get a really good composition. Because these animals are constantly moving it is a real challenge because at the very least, you are trying to get the animal in an ideal pose or gesture, just like when taking candids of people. When photographing animals, one of the first rules is to make sure that the eye (s) is/are in focus and when possible to get a catch light in the eye to give the animal some life. In National Parks and National Wildlife Refuges it is amazing at times how wide a birth that the animals will give the photographer. This little guy (maybe a bit over 12"?) tall was obliging and I was able to take this portrait from about 14 feet, basically about as close as the 800mm lens would focus (no other 800mm lens focuses this close). My thanks to Leica Camera, USA for the loan of this remarkable piece of glass for about a month. As big and heavy the lens, it is a spectacular performer. It is unfortunate that many here at APUG do not realize the difficulty or the interest in this kind of work. Rich