December 2022

In overcast light there is really only one type of photograph I am looking to make: a portrait.  Overcast skies can be thought of an enormous soft box, diffusing the light so it has little or no directionality. That means no shadows, which can be a good look for portraits!…

Glottis exposure -- what is it?  A "glottis exposure" is a not-so-well described pelican behavior. I have seen it thousands of times among California brown pelicans but didn't know the proper term for it until recently, when I became aware of some guy on Twitter who described what the behavior…

I'm shooting the La Jolla pelicans often this winter; see recent blog posts about La Jolla Pelicans as well as a gallery of my favorite brown pelican photos. Our wonderful weather and bird activity continues. It's the day after Christmas and the rest of the country remains freezing and in…

If, like me, you enjoy photographing pelicans, Christmas came a day early this year. Well, sort of.  I had to get some bread at Girard Gourmet for Christmas dinner, so went into La Jolla early on Dec 24.  I had been photographing 3 of the previous 4 mornings but the…

When photographing the birds in La Jolla, lately I have found myself trying to capture their bizarre contortions and realized these birds are the original yoga practitioners!  (When brown pelicans bend their head backward to their back it is usually as a part of preening, so that the preen oil…

The first few weeks in December were generally great for photographing a variety of subjects in La Jolla with the exception of La Jolla's California brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis), at least on the mornings I was there. The pelicans seemed to be mostly gone, perhaps offshore foraging or just occupying cliffs that…

This is the time of year that I photograph in La Jolla often, and California brown pelicans are one of my favorite subjects.  Adult brown pelicans are now entering the period when they display vibrant breeding and non-breeding winter plumage. And there is a variety of juvenile plumage to be…