So much of photography is planning. Sometimes your planning pays off with keeper images that are THE shot you were after and had dreamed of making. Sometimes even with planning, you come away from your shoot with anything but THE shot. I had such an experience this weekend.

As I discussed in a previous post, I enjoy photographing birds in the winter. The most nervous species usually find the best hiding places when leaves create a canopy in the woods or forest. During the winter, the bare trees leave less hiding places, making many species easier to find. This is something new birders should keep in mind as they plan their outings.

Now I know some will send me an email saying these are great images of the Red-Bellied Woodpecker, a species not easy to photograph. If you were looking at the bird itself, you would be correct. The image is crisp and well exposed, good gesture in the birds face. In the top image, you can even see how strong the wind was blowing by the movement of the birds feathers. However, if you take the whole image in its entirety, you will notice how distracting the background is. Also, I don’t like how big the tree element is in the foreground relative to the birds size. Both images just don’t feel good to me. After all, isn’t that why we make photographs, to feel good?

So what does this mean? It means I need to try and get THE image another day! Oh yeah, I need to plan my camera placement better next time as well.