winter pigeon

Pigeons again! I have one poor winter pigeon to share, to be precise.

Those who follow me do know I am a megapolis habitant and dont have much birding variety to suggest: ducks, sparrows, crows and the pigeons. Mostly the pigeons, all the rest more or less is a luck. And I tend not to shoot them, as I dont feel I can harvest sufficiently anything "new", I rather consider I already nailed it, or so.

But this lonely poor winter pigeon... I stumbled upon him a few days ago walking across the street in a sleeping suburb district.

My camera was equipped with a universal everyday 50-mm lens - a good choice for artsy bokeh and such stuff, bot definitely not the best lens to portray a birdie in the detailed close-up manner.

I love taking pics when there happens a good light, an intresting color, background, etc - it gives a magic atmosphere to the captured image. And this was exactly the case. What makes background on the photo, is just an old weared asphalt, chipped from time, which has been wet for decades, and due to that is covered with a greenish bloom of moss. All of it comes as a bonus - the reason why I stopped, unholstered camera and aimed it at said pigeon, was this feeling around...

See, pigeons always used to crowd alltogether, rarely you can see one 'hermit' pigeon who would want to retire from his relatives ... This one wanted exactly that. He hid in this secluded corner behind a residential building, and sat there, refusing to move anywhere even under the threat of being photographed. No, he was not intimidated by my big DSLR camera with a big lens.

Maybe he was a solipsist?

I took two shots and come closer to get a close-up shot with more details. The pigeon did not react and did not move. I came even closer (remember, my 50mm lens does not have such a feature as "zoom" - the zoom is carried out exclusively with your feet!)

Eventually I approached to the very hand distance! (30-40 cm is the minimal distance where 50-mm lens could do the focusing job, at all). I could do the macro of his eyes, if only I would have macro lens with me; pigeon was sitting still, looking at me and posing perfectly. The last shot was the last, I really hate to make loads of same takes that add nothing new. We had a nice eye contact - what else I could ~~dream~~ demand of?

This was the last shot (cropped part made the cover of this post).

I took 7 pics from various (shrinking) distance, and went away feeling pretty happy with this - lets face the truth - pretty ordinary session with no exclusive stuff. You cant have delicious cakes all of the time, right? This was 'the bread part' on that day; and I had delicious shadows and a fish store by the end of my photo-walk. (The last is still awaiting to be shared. Would make a lovely #marketfriday entry, I am sure of that). Ok, let me round up on this note. See you next time, when I meet something cool again, or pull it from my archives.

all images taken with Canon 5D + Sigma 50mm 1.4
location: St.Petersburg, Russia