Page 19 - Backyard Bird Photography: How to Attract Birds to Your Home and Create Beautiful Photographs

reflection of his body in the water. I was careful to frame the bird just to the left of center

in the horizontal image, but I realized that I couldn’t make the bird larger without losing
part, if not all, of the reflection of the bird in the water. By cropping this image vertically
and still leaving the bird a tiny bit left of center, the bird itself and his reflection is
highlighted more.

Black-chinned Hummingbird male and Mexican marigold
In May of 2013, I discovered another interesting aspect of composition when I decided

to use a square crop on my hummingbird photographs. Placing the bird in the upper left
of the frame creates a sense of drama that I might not otherwise have in these photographs,
as the hummingbird looks down at me from his perch on the feeder. I tried this technique
with the Allen’s Hummingbird and with the Black-chinned Hummingbird, with the bush
daisy as a background, and was very pleased with the results. I think it would be interesting

to do an exhibition of hummingbird images using this square crop format. Each print
would be a little jewel, like the hummingbirds themselves. A diptych or triptych of
hummingbird photographs using the square crop would be interesting as well.

Lesser Goldfinches at feeder