This is a quick overview of my 5 favorite pictures for 2011 – with a big qualification: I have a large backlog of pictures from 2011 yet to be processed, reviewed, culled, tagged, filed, etc. So, this is actually just my top 5 of the ones I’ve gone through, so far. There’s a good chance that I’ll find new favorites for 2011 in that backlog.

That said, here are my top 5, presented in chronological order. I hope you enjoy them.

Tucked in (Sleeping California Sea Lion) © Mike Spinak

Garlic Mushrooms Growing on a Tanoak Leaf © Mike Spinak

Northern Elephant Seal Bull Coming Ashore © Mike Spinak

Mount Florence with Thundercloud, Yosemite National Park © Mike Spinak

Anna's Hummingbird Mother Feeding 16 Day Old Chick © Mike Spinak

I look forward to what 2012 brings, and I look forward to sharing my experiences with you through my pictures.

Happy New Year!

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

Here’s an overview of the pictures I’ve shown on Naturography, so far. There will be many more coming, of course – so I’ll update the slideshow, now and then.

Like most of the pictures I show on Naturography, these pictures are available as fine art prints, and also available to license as rights managed stock.

The slideshow may take a few moments to load. Please be patient.

You can pause on a picture by clicking the button in the bottom right corner of the picture. You can view the slideshow full-screen by clicking on the button just left of the pause button. The buttons will appear when you scroll over the slideshow.

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

This is the first set of my Sleeping California Sea Lions project. The slideshow may take a few moments to load. Please be patient. If you prefer to view these without a Flash viewer, please go here.

You can pause on a picture by clicking the button in the bottom right corner of the picture. You can view the slideshow full-screen by clicking on the button just left of the pause button. The buttons will appear when you scroll over the slideshow.

Like most of the pictures I show on Naturography, these pictures are available as fine art prints, and also available to license as rights managed stock.

What the Sleeping Sea Lions project is about:

Sea lions, when awake, can often seem like extraordinarily temperamental and unwarrantedly vicious animals toward their peers. They often attack each other for seemingly the slightest infractions; for example, I often see them chomp into each others’ sides, leaving bloody wounds and permanent scars, apparently just to get one to scoot aside so that the other may more easily move past. Seemingly, almost every encounter leads to a baring of fangs, barking and growling, snapping and striking; and they’re covered with scars and open wounds, mostly caused by each other. Their bellicosity seems endless.

Except when they sleep. They all sleep together, and it’s a magical phenomenon to behold. They sleep with anybody and everybody. They press into each other and make a solid carpet, so tight that no ground is visible between them. They pile on top of each other, sometimes 3 or 4 deep. They press their bodies together in the most intimate ways, face to face, or face pressed to anything and everything. They let their bodies be the beds and pillows for each other. They do this regardless of age or sex or relation, including with strangers, and including with those whom they heatedly fought moments ago. They hold each other tenderly, caress each other, cuddle and snuggle and nuzzle each other as close as they can, seemingly relishing close contact without boundaries. They let go of their hostility, let go their grievances, and find peace and comfort, if just for a little while.

In this, I saw a lesson of peace, and drew hope and inspiration that kindness and tenderness toward each other always remains possible, that reconciliation can be achieved under even the most extreme circumstances, that the good still can always out.

I hope you enjoy them. Thank you for looking.

Sleeping California Sea Lions (Zalophus Californianus)

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

Joe Decker and I will be conducting a Northern elephant seal wildlife photography workshop at Piedras Blancas Beach in San Simeon, on the weekend of January 7th and 8th, 2012. Registration fees are $575 per person for the weekend workshop, not including travel, room, and food.

Northern Elephant Seal Bull (Mirounga angustirostris) Coming Ashore © Mike Spinak

This is an opportunity to photograph a rare wildlife spectacle, with the knowledge, teaching, and assistance of two master nature photographers.

Elephant seals spend nine to eleven months of the year at sea. During this time, they don’t venture on land at all. They start coming ashore around late November or early December, and continue arriving throughout the Winter. There are only about seven breeding grounds (sometimes called “rookeries”), in total in the world, for Northern elephant seals. Most of them are in remote beaches on islands off the California coast. The two most accessible rookeries for people to see them are Año Nuevo, and Piedras Blancas, both along the central California coast. Of the two, only Piedras Blancas allows you to get very close, and stay very close all day long, to very large numbers of elephant seals.

During this event, you’ll see and photograph the drama of their life cycles – thousands of elephant seals arriving on the beaches, fighting for territory and breeding rights, mating, giving birth, nursing their young, and more. Meanwhile, Joe and I will share nature photography insight, tips and techniques to help you achieve your best pictures ever.

This workshop is perfect for both beginning and advanced wildlife photographers. For beginning wildlife photographers, it’s a chance to hone your skills and gain experience in a situation which allows you to make the most of limited equipment. For advanced wildlife photographers, it’s a chance to develop your vision and take your skills to the next level, in a situation with endless opportunities, and expert help on hand.

EXPERIENCE LEVEL:

Beginner through advanced.

EQUIPMENT REQUIREMENTS:

A DSLR or SLR camera, and a lens with a minimum focal length of 200 millimeters or more; comfortable clothes and shoes, sunscreen, snacks and a water bottle.

Other gear that will be helpful, but is not strictly necessary, includes a flash, a Better Beamer for the flash, a tripod and / or monopod, cable release, teleconverters, and a laptop computer (for showing and discussing your pictures).

WHAT TO EXPECT:

There will be an optional orientation on Friday evening, during which we will show pictures and discuss the lives of elephant seals, with an emphasis on what to look for when photographing them. We’ll also go over basic techniques for photographing them at this time, and we’ll help you work out any equipment issues.

On Saturday and Sunday, we’ll be in the field, photographing from the first light of day to the last. We’ll be on hand, guiding and assisting during this time. During lunch breaks (at local restaurants), we’ll be able to review, problem solve, and discuss as a group.

After we return from the workshop, and you’ve had a chance to upload, cull and process your pictures, we’ll have an online video conference session, for discussion, review, and critique.

Throughout the workshop, we’ll be discussing and emphasizing vision, composition, communication, handheld camera stabilization and tripod mounted camera stabilization, metering, timing, and understanding and interpreting nature.

LOCATION:

The workshop will be at the Piedras Blancas elephant seal rookery, on Highway 1, seven miles North of San Simeon, California.

Joe and I will be lodging at the Motel 6 in Cambria.

INSTRUCTORS:

Your instructors will be me (Mike Spinak), and Joe Decker.

You already know me, of course, and you also have everything on this website to learn more about me.

Joe Decker is a brilliant, talented, knowledgeable, and friendly award-winning nature photographer who lives in San Jose, California. You can read his biography, here; see an example of his wildlife photography here, and an example of his landscape photography here; and visit his website here.

FURTHER INFORMATION:

Further information will be emailed out to all workshop participants, later.

Also, call us any time, if you have any questions.

REGISTRATION:

Registration fees are $575 per person for the full weekend workshop. Contact us by clicking on the word contact at the top of this page, or by calling (831) 325-6917. We will return your email or call and register you.

Space is limited, so please enroll now.

Northern Elephant Seal Coming Ashore (Mirounga angustirostris), Piedras Blancas Beach, San Simeon, California

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) Nectaring on Arrowhead Groundsel (Senecio triangularis), Yosemite National Park © Mike Spinak

A few weeks ago, Jason Reed asked me for my thoughts about staged nature photos. I told him I’d write an article on my website to answer fully, rather than give a brief, incomplete answer, elsewhere. So here it is.

When I started nature photography, I read a book by Leonard Lee Rue III, called How I Photograph Wildlife and Nature. Among other things in the book, he extensively discussed staging techniques he used, such as getting butterflies too drunk to fly, and placing them in good positions on pretty flowers, cooling snakes in an ice chest until they can’t move, then setting them in dramatic poses and aesthetic locations, and so on.

After reading the book, I came to conclude I’m not keen on staging nature photos. This is for several reasons:

1) To begin with, one of the main reasons I’m a nature photographer is because I want to enjoy experiencing the natural world. The more one stages one’s shot – with baiting, or using captive and trained animals, or building sets and background, etc. – the less it’s nature on its own terms, and thus the less of that experience one gets. In that sense, staging doesn’t sound fun or thrilling, and doesn’t have the same appeal to me as making unstaged photos.

2) When staging with wild creatures, you risk harming the animals, in a number of ways. You may increase the exposure of the animal you’re baiting to predators. For example, I’ve seen Cooper’s hawks hang around feeders for songbirds, waiting for an easy meal. Additionally, the bait used to bring animals in is often “junk food” – less nutritionally complete than the animal needs – such as the sugar water commonly used in hummingbird feeders, rather than the more nutritious wild flower nectars. Baiting animals may also increase their exposure to pathogens, especially in cases like a bird feeder, where many birds feed from the exact same hole, or when bringing bait animals from a different area. Getting animals to come to you by playing recorded animal calls wastes the precious resources which many animals need for their knife-edge subsistence livings, just for the sake of photos. And so on.

3) By staging pictures, you’re likely to get what you’re after. Or, to put it another way: you’re unlikely to get what you’re not after – you’re less likely to be surprised by unusual situations and unusual behaviors. You’ll probably get more consistently good photos, at the expense of fewer superlative photos.

4) Staging photos may come at the expense of some useful natural history information. Staged photos are likely to contain less informative content about natural history, overall, if they involve creating scenes or situations which are simplified versions of the full complexity of nature. Staged photos are also likely to often contain false natural history information – the staged setting or situation is likely to be one that an animal wouldn’t have chosen on its own, and is also likely to include inaccuracies about what an animal eats, how it behaves, etc.

For example, there was a scandal, last year, where José Luis Rodriguez was stripped of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award, for staging his winning photo of an Inberian wolf jumping over a farmer’s gate to hunt livestock. One of the tip-offs that the picture is a fake, using a tame, trained wolf, is that the picture shows false behavioral information. A wild wolf on the prowl, as opposed to a trained wolf performing a trick, would have sneaked through the bars of the gate, rather than jump over the gate.

Now, all of the above may sound like a harsh critique. Let me be clear that I’m not completely against people staging nature photos in all circumstances. Simply put, there are some things we would likely never succeed in photographing without staging to a high degree. Stephen Dalton is a master of staging nature photos to get pictures of things we’d never see otherwise, such as this. There’s obviously value in getting such pictures. I do think one should weigh the risks to the subjects against the potential informative value, and minimize the staging of nature pictures when the likelihood is small of the pictures conveying significant information.

It did bother me when Darrel Gulin, as the President of the North American Nature Photography Association, discussed gluing hundreds of dead butterflies to a bush to make unique photos – because I felt like that diverges too far from the nature in nature photography, and because the message was coming from someone in an influential position, who represents the nature photography community.

Nonetheless, I’m not categorically against staged nature photos. I am against passing off highly staged pictures as unstaged pictures, but I’m not fundamentally against staging nature pictures when that’s the only way to get certain photos with significant informative value. If you’re going to stage photos, then (1) be educated enough to avoid conveying false natural history information; (2) weigh the risks to the subjects versus the benefits of the pictures; (3) be educated and careful enough to minimize risks to your subjects; (4) be honest that the pictures are captive animals, or were baited, or in a birdbath, or whatever.

Do those, and you can make staging a valuable part of nature photography.

Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) Nectaring on Arrowhead Groundsel (Senecio triangularis), Yosemite National Park, California

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

Sea Nettle (Chrysoara Fuscescens), Moss landing, California © Mike Spinak

I’m going to get right to the point: I’d like you to sign up for Google Plus, and “circle me“, there, if you haven’t already.

Some of you might be thinking, “But I’ve already invested a lot of time and energy building up my accounts on Facebook and Twitter. I’m happy enough, there. All my friends and clients are there. I don’t want to have to go through all of that work, again.”

Let me explain to you why I like it there, and why I’d rather connect with you, there, than on other social media sites.

To begin with, as a photographer, I like that Google Plus shows pictures better than Facebook. The thumbnail sizes for photos are much larger. The full size pictures are also larger. The gallery view is better, too. And Google Plus shows pictures against a dark background. And I think G+ is not compressing the picture files as much as Facebook, because the pictures appear better quality. All in all, it’s a much better place to display pictures than Facebook, and perhaps better than Flickr, too. (It’s also free for unlimited photos uploads, unlike, Flickr’s $25 per year.)

I also get a much higher rate of engagement, when I post on Google Plus than when I post on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or anywhere else. For example, I posted this picture on Google Plus, a few hours ago (as of when I was writing this). So far, it’s received 42 “Plus Ones”, 11 comments, and 5 shares. When’s the last time a picture of yours has had that kind of response on Facebook? For me, the answer would be “never even once”. Also compare that to the the 6 “favorites” and 11 comments that the same picture has received on Flickr, since I posted it 45 months ago. Post a topic, and it’s the same thing: I get far more replies discussing the topic on Google Plus than on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

I also get more visitors clicking through to my website from Google Plus than I ever got through Facebook and Twitter. Much more. In fact, I started getting more traffic to my website from G+ than from Facebook and Twitter combined when I had only about one-tenth as many G+ contacts as Facebook and Twitter contacts.

That brings up another notable metric. As of today, I’ve been on Google Plus for about two months. Over that period of time, I’ve made three times as many contacts on Google Plus as I’ve made on Facebook over the last three years. You might think that this was boosted by a lot of the community I’d built up on Facebook and Twitter then becoming contacts with me on Google Plus. Actually, the opposite is closer to the truth. Rather few came from Facebook and Twitter, however, my numbers of contacts on Facebook and Twitter wouldn’t be as high as they are, but for the fact that a lot of the contacts I first made through Google Plus later made contact with me on those sites.

Also, take a look at this chart of how long it took Google Plus to reach 50 million users, compared to how long it took Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and MySpace. It took Google Plus less than three months, whereas it took Facebook over three and a half years. Then, look at this article, that Google Plus’s traffic grew by 1,269% in the past week.

It is also worth noting that participating on Google Plus appears to be one of the best things you can do for your website’s Google search ranking.

The quality of the content posted on Google Plus tends to be much higher, too. For example, looking at the very first post to come up in my stream, right now, on Google Plus: it’s a post discussing a science article about propulsion issues being a major hurdle which is likely to prevent interstellar travel for a long time. And looking up the very first post to come up in my stream right now, on Facebook: It’s a post about someone trying to gather the motivation to go on a bike ride. For whatever reason, the culture of what to discuss on Facebook tends to be more along the lines of what you are doing right now, while the culture of what to discuss on Google Plus tends to be more about ideas, projects – substantial content. These are just broad generalizations, but I think you’ll find Google Plus is a more conducive place for engaging in meaningful conversations. Of course, it’s still possible to have superficial interactions on Google Plus; notably, you now also have much greater likelihood of holding conversations with depth, if you want them.

On the subject of meaningful conversations, Google Plus has no character limits on the length of posts and comments. I’ve seen a person post an entire novella he wrote. Lengthy, in-depth posts are more possible, and thus, more common, on Google Plus. Not only are you less constrained about the length of a post, the number of pictures in a post, and the number of links in a post, you also have richer formatting options, with stuff like strike-through text. Google Plus also allows you to edit posts and edit comments, which helps facilitate meaningful conversations.

Additionally, Google’s sophisticated search engine and features make it easy to find others who share your interests, while Google Plus’s way of organizing with circles makes it easy to organize by your interests, and select your news feed accordingly. You end up with a cornucopia of quality content and conversation, relevant to your interests, easily accessible.

Further, Google Plus allows “circling” others regardless whether they circle you back, and circling people makes it possible to comment on their posts. Since reciprocation is not mandated for interaction, Google Plus is a much easier place to meet new people than Facebook.

These various factors have lead Google Plus to be a more community-oriented place than Facebook or Twitter, with lots of people helping each other and doing a lot of things together. For example, I’ve been organizing a project for the photographer community to collectively make a photo book as a fundraiser for Doctors without Borders. I’ve also been using Google Hangouts (video conferencing with up to 10 people at a time) to run discussions on understanding visual art. Many others have been using Google Hangouts for helping each other, too, and for doing projects together (and for socializing, of course). And I’ll be joining many other Bay Area Google Plus users for a Photo Walk at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, tomorrow.

As is typical for Google, Google Plus has a comparatively clean, elegant design which is easy on the eyes. Meanwhile Facebook’s design is an eyesore, and seems to be degenerating toward this or this. Have you noticed Facebook’s new ticker? Ugh.

Beyond just the way it looks, Google Plus’s interface is much more straightforward and easy to figure out. If you’ve done much of trying to change settings in Facebook, you know that it can sometimes seem like navigating your way through a secret labyrinth to get important settings done. That’s why we so often see people posting detailed instructions how to change their Facebook news feed to show all their friends’ posts, or to update important security settings, or to turn off features like the one that lets people order prints of the pictures you post.

Both Facebook’s design and interface are the result of endlessly kludging and endlessly festooning more features into a legacy system that was never meant for this scale and never meant to do these things. This is the same reason we have the confusing system with the new “subscriptions” added in the last week, in addition to the already existing “fanning” people’s business pages, which was kludged onto the system of “friending” people, which is now newly broken down into family, close friends, acquaintances, restricted, and so on. All this badly implemented kludging comes from the underlying issue that things were haphazardly designed to begin with, and continue to be badly designed anew with each update, due to poor planning. The managers and coders seem to me to have very little idea of what they’re doing, both conceptually and structurally, and seem to be flying by the seats of their pants. This differs from the quality of coding and planning that goes into Google’s creations.

Beyond this, the people in charge of Facebook routinely and purposely ignore and subvert the wishes of Facebook’s users. For example, they sent me this email, a week ago:

Hi Mike,

We’re trying out a new feature to reduce the amount of email you receive from Facebook. Starting today, we are turning off most individual email notifications and instead, we’ll send you a summary only if there are popular stories you may have missed.

You can turn individual emails back on and restore all of your original settings at any time.

Thanks,

The Facebook Team

One would think that something so obvious wouldn’t need to be said, but: When I previously went though Facebook’s email notification settings and set them the way I wanted them, I did that because that’s the way that I wanted them. Now they’re rudely presuming they know what I want better than I do, ignoring my settings choices, and wasting my time with this nonsense.

Facebook seems to come up with lots of disastrous (for me) ways to mess with things, out of touch with my needs and usage patterns. For example, when I went to Facebook a  few days ago, suddenly all of my “Top Stories” were from people I barely knew. As far as I can tell, the people who wrote Facebook’s questionable algorithm made it heavily weight the fact that these contacts were also photographers who live in Palo Alto – as though that’s what’s important to me. Meanwhile, Facebook’s new algorithms apparently are filtering the posts of all my contacts, not showing me every post (!) – and are using this quality of algorithms to choose which posts I see and which I don’t. Every time I go to Facebook, I feel like I’m getting in the car to start a grand adventure – and then, as I try to open the door to get in, the door falls off its hinges.

[Edited to add: This cartoon sums this up well.]

On the other hand, the people running Google Plus, and – in fact, the people running Google – are present and engaged on Google Plus. Sergey Brin, one of the co-founders of Google, joined a friend of mine in a Google Hangout,  a few weeks ago. Pretty much all of the people at Google involved with the Google Plus project regularly post, and regularly interact with other posters. They’re meeting G+ users in person, too, such as joining on Photo Walks. They’re actually listening to feedback and implementing changes to bring people the features they want and ask for. As of today, they’ve been implementing about one big improvement per day, such as their addition of the ability to share circles, as of yesterday. And they’ve been far more innovative than Facebook, in my opinion.

On a deeper level than this, Facebook repeatedly earns my distrust in ways that Google doesn’t. For example: this week’s cookie scandal. In case you missed it, it was found that Facebook’s cookies monitor and report where you visit on the web, even after you log out of Facebook. This was followed by Facebook denying the allegations. Then, when they couldn’t get away with denying it, they admitted it, but told Facebook users to trust them. When that position was no longer tenable, then Facebook fixed their cookies to no longer track people’s internet behavior after they sign out of Facebook. Meanwhile, this cookie scandal has lead people to test whether Google’s cookies similarly monitor your web activity, which resulted in the answer that Google is not doing this. This is just one in a long series of similarly concerning stories about Facebook that seem to come out every few weeks.

[Edited to add: A few days ago, Facebook stated, "Generally, unlike other major internet companies, we have no interest in tracking people." Meanwhile, Facebook also filed a for a patent, with the following description in the patent application: "In one embodiment, a method is described for tracking information about the activities of users of a social networking system while on another domain."]

You might not trust Google, either. Heck, you might not trust any major corporations. That’s probably wise. Nonetheless, if I had to choose to trust my data with one or the other, it seems to me that Google deserves more trust than Facebook.

There are other things I could mention, such as the fact that Google Plus (so far) has no advertising; and that you are not constantly bombarded with requests to “fan” people’s business pages, or to accept invitations for events in far off lands that you can’t attend, or to play Farmville, or Mafia Wars; or the fact that you don’t constantly get added to people’s groups without having been asked, or tagged in pictures which have nothing to do with you; and that spam from fake accounts is much, much rarer. Or the fact that Google+ doesn’t have applications which leak private information to advertisers and others, like Facebook does, nor phishing scams to steal your password or other sensitive information, like Facebook does, nor computer viruses, like Facebook does. Or the fact that the emphasis on real identities, and the exclusion of minors, have lead to people being much better behaved, and lead to trolls being comparatively rare. Or the fact that Google already owns so many of the pieces and has them in place – Chrome, Android, G mail, YouTube, Picasa, Blogger, Google Search, Google Maps, Google Documents, Google Earth, etc. – and is in the process of effectively integrating them all into a very useful, powerful platform, in a way that no other company can compete with. Or the facts that Google has the wherewithal to make this the next biggest thing on the internet, considers Google+ of primary importance, and is giving it their full backing. Hopefully, by now, I’ve said enough to make my point.

I like the benefits that social media allows, in terms of staying in touch with friends, family, customers and clients. I’m not so happy with Facebook as the intermediary. I’ve been putting up with Facebook because, as a small business owner, it’s been necessary. Now, I think something better has come along, and I’m in the process of transitioning  from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and so on, to Google Plus, as much as possible. The level of engagement is so much higher on G+, that putting equivalent energy into Facebook and Twitter seems uneconomical, by comparison.

Google Plus is by no means perfect – to some degree, it suffers from many of the same flaws that all social media outlets do. (I’ll discuss those in a future post.) But I do like it better than the alternatives.

Now, you may have read very different takes on Google plus than mine, elsewhere – such as this article which describes Google Plus as “Worse than a Ghost Town”. In the article, Dan Reimold states, “…my circles are sparse. The stream of updates has basically run dry – reduced to one buddy who regularly writes”. Why the discrepancy between my description of the most vibrant social media community on the web, and some other articles describing the place as dead and deserted? Understanding the reason is key to your success on Google Plus.

If you want activity and interaction on Google Plus, you can’t just sit there and wait for it to come to you. At the time Dan Reimold complained about how dead Google plus is, he had circled just 28 people, and he had never once made a public post. (He still hasn’t.) Of course, you won’t get any interaction, if you’re not connected with anybody. Of course, nobody will take an interest in you if you never say anything to anyone. You have to take an active role. Search for topics that interest you, and circle people who are discussing those topics. Join in on conversations. Post things that grab other people’s interest, and will make them want to connect with you. Invite your friends over to Google Plus. Join hangouts to meet people – or even start hangouts, yourself. And so on.

In short: You get out of it what you put into it. So, make it happen.

If you do, you’ll find Google Plus the most rewarding social network currently around.

So, sign up, and connect with me, here.

Sea Nettle (Chrysoara Fuscescens), Moss landing, California

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

Please do keep in mind that my narrative about these hummingbirds is conjecture wherein I interpret what I observed, and is not necessarily established fact.

The nest was in a popular location, about eight feet off the road, in front of the ranger station, at the Palo Alto Baylands. Thus, it was a well known nest. It was even marked with a sign about six feet in front of the nest, telling you not to get closer.

I started photographing these hummingbirds when the elder of the two chicks was about fifteen days old, and the younger was presumably about thirteen days old. Anna’s hummingbirds tend to lay two eggs most of the time, and tend to lay them about two days apart. Anna’s hummingbird chicks usually fledge when they are between eighteen and twenty-one days old.

Around two weeks old is about the right time to start photographing the chicks on the nest, for my tastes and purposes. Very young hummingbirds are too small to photograph where they’ll be large in the picture, without using a close up lens from perhaps a foot away – which would be interferentially close. Furthermore, they’re so small that they can’t even be seen over the edge of their tiny nests. Newborn hummingbirds are featherless; their eyes are closed, and they don’t move much. Around two weeks old, they’re large enough for their heads to rise above the edge of the nest; their feathers are noticeably starting to come in; and they’re more aware and more active.

Here’s what they looked like at that age.

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Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chicks at about 15 Days Old © Mike Spinak

I photographed them from about seven feet away. There was only a clear view of them from the direction of the road. Since they were only about eight feet off the tarmac, I had to be fairly close, in order to avoid standing (with tripod, camera, lens, flash, cable release, and the whole set-up) in the middle of a a moderately well used road. The far side of the road would have been too far away for worthwhile photos, in my opinion, and my view would likely have been blocked by passing traffic at critical moments. These hummingbirds nested just off the road on one side, and just off a footpath on the other side, with a Summer camp full of loud, rambunctious kids at the ranger station yard immediately behind the footpath. The birds were very habituated to human presence, making it possible for me to shoot this close, while they behaved normally.

I used my 300 mm f/4 lens, because it has a minimum focusing distance of just under five feet, while my 600 f/4 has a minimum focusing distance of about 17 feet – which would have forced me to shoot from the middle of the street. Even at only about seven feet away, I used a 2x teleconverterr on my 300 mm lens; thus shooting with the equivalent of a 600 f/8 lens. I used the teleconverter because the chicks and the nest are so small. How small? Small enough that people would walk up to me and ask me what I was photographing, when the nest was right in front of us, not much further than arm’s reach. When I’d answer “a hummingbird nest”, most of them asked, “Where?” When I pointed out where, most of them would say, “I don’t see it.” The nest was that small.

In my estimation, there was only a very small area which was ideally suited to shoot the nest from. If too far to the left, the nest started to be blocked by foliage in the way. If too far to the right, very bright tones in the background, in the direction of the ranger station, gave the pictures an undesirable look. And, as already explained, the road limited how far back I wanted to get. The best spot to shoot the nest was a patch of ground less than three by three feet. I did fairly little moving around or changing angles and positions, with this little project. Capturing the story of the hummingbirds growing up necessarily had more to do with capturing notable moments and behaviors than with using varied angles, positions, and juxtapositions for interpretive effect.

Unfortunately, the ideal spot to photograph the chicks was directly below several black-crowned night heron nests and snowy egret nests. There were frequent “showers” of bird poop filtering down through the leaves onto everything, and my gear and I got directly hit with the full brunt on four separate occasions. That’s the price of being a nature photographer, sometimes. I like to imagine the pictures were worth it.

You can see a fine spray of bird poop coming down, in some of the pictures, such as this one.

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Showered in Bird Feces © Mike Spinak

I’ve photographed several other hummingbird nests over the years. This particular nest was the best for photographing of any I’ve ever seen. This was due to several factors.

1) The nest could be photographed with an unobstructed view;

2) The nest was just below eye level;

3) It was possible to get close to the nest;

4) The nest afforded a variety of lighting conditions – full sun in the early morning, mixed light and shadow in the mid morning, full shade in the late morning and onward, and diffuse light when the foggy marine layer came in;

5) This mother fed the chicks more frequently than other hummingbird mothers I’ve seen, feeding the chicks sometimes as often as eight minute intervals, and never (from what I saw) much more than about half-hour intervals;

6) The nest was built on top of a wonderfully photogenic seed pod;

7) The nest was made “the old fashioned way” (i.e., made out of spider webs, pine needles, sticks, lichens, feathers, etc. – all natural materials), while other nests I’ve found have incorporated such things as bits of brightly colored polyethylene tarps, fishing line, and various other unaesthetic bits of garbage.

Here’s an example of a different Anna’s hummingbird nest, with the more typical and photographically problematic obstructed view.

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Nest with Obstructed View © Mike Spinak

And here’s an example of a yet different Anna’s hummingbird nest, with ugly bits bits of man-made junk built into it.

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Feeding Chicks © Mike Spinak

Since the situation seemed good, I decided to come as much as I could (six days out of the eight days from when I started until the chicks fledged), and try to make as much as I could of the opportunity. As I mentioned in the Red-Tailed Hawk Photo Shoot Walkthrough, great nature photography opportunities often suddenly end due to unpredictable reasons. I could come back, the next day, to find the chicks eaten by herons, egrets, crows, gulls, raccoons, or various other predators. Or perhaps a kid at the Summer camp might take the nest. Or a strong wind could knock it down. And furthermore, such prime opportunities may be very rare – it may be years, if ever, before I have a crack at another hummingbird nest as photogenic as this one. So, I struck while the iron was hot.

My hope was to photograph the chicks as they grew up, until they fledged. I wanted to get lots of details, along the way, showing behaviors and developmental stages. And, of course, I wanted to take artful photos, when possible, as well as documentary.

Part of doing a photo shoot of this kind is clearly articulating to yourself what you want, and what you don’t want, and then keeping all of that in mind, as the situations unfold. For example, one shot that I told myself I wanted was a chick flicking its tongue, with the tongue well lit up in the direct sun, highlighted against a darkly shaded background (as will be shown, further below). One thing I told myself I wanted to avoid was taking shots where shadows from foliage were falling right across the chicks’s eyes.

Ironically, I ended up going the opposite direction – specifically seeking out a perfect shot of a shadow falling across a chick’s eye, just to create an illustration for you, Dear Readers. Here it is:

Anna's Hummingbird Chick (Calypte anna) with Shadow Across Eye © Mike Spinak

The shadow-across-the-eye picture, above, also illustrates something else I tried to mindfully avoid: large, bright, distracting areas in the background.

Yet another thing I tried to avoid, when possible, was convergence between the second chick, in the background, with the chick in the foreground, in a way that looked confusing or strange. So, I might try to avoid shots with the background bird’s beak sticking out from the foreground bird’s body in strange places, like this…

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Convergence Example © Mike Spinak

…and strive to get photographs more like this one, instead.

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Nonconvergence Example © Mike Spinak

Of course, I threw all such stuff out the window, when necessary in order to capture significant shots, however they happened to occur.

OK, let’s get on with the story:

The chicks got what rest they could while their mother was out getting food. They had a tremendous amount of growth to accomplish between when they hatched from an egg about the size of a pea, weighing a fraction of a gram, and when they were nearly adult sized and nearly fully developed, three weeks or less later. Here they are, getting some rest. You can see in this picture that their beaks were still rather short, their feathers were just starting to come in, and they still had bald pinkish patches on their chest and other areas. The tips of their wing feathers (visible in this picture below and to the camera left of the front chick’s eye, pressed against the front of the nest) were just starting to poke through the sheaths. Hard to believe they’d be ready to fledge in about a week from this, isn’t it?

~15 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chicks Resting © Mike Spinak

At this point, by the way, they were in rather dark shade, and I was shooting at a mere 1/100th of a second, at ISO 1600, at an aperture of f/10. This allowed me enough light, and just enough depth of field for the nearer chick (even though the farther chick was only a fraction of an inch behind the nearer one). I was uncomfortable with using such a low shutter speed, because hummingbirds move very fast, and I didn’t want motion blur, when their mother came in to feed them. As it turned out, I managed to successfully time the right instant during the feeding, when the mother and chicks were still. (See the second picture down from this.)

Here’s the mother returning from a feeding foray. Here, her belly is full of some flower nectar, and a lot of small insects, to regurgitate for her chicks. On the return to the nest, the mother stopped at several perches, carefully checking that the coast was clear, before coming in to feed. She didn’t want to alert predators to the nest and chicks. This was likely a constant worry for her, since there were black-crowned night heron nests and snowy egret nests almost directly above, just fifteen or so feet away. Pictured here, she’s on a perch, looking for predators, before making a final approach to feed the chicks.

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Perched On Needle © Mike Spinak

As she approached, her two hungry chicks became much more lively, fully opening their eyes, and lifting their heads. The feedings were fairly quick. The mother regurgitated down each chick’s throat for about five to ten seconds.

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Mother Feeding ~15 Day Old Chicks © Mike Spinak

The next day, the chicks had noticeably longer beaks, though the beaks still had a lot of the yellow coloration (adult beaks are black), and the beaks still had a noticeable remnant of the hooked tip (called an “egg tooth”) the chicks used to peck their way out of their eggs. Their feathering had filled out dramatically, covering their skin much more. Whereas the previous day, just the very tips of their primary, secondary, and tertial wing feathers poked through the sheaths (those white tubes on the wings), this day the tips of the wings were poking out of the sheaths far enough that they were starting to unfurl. The chicks were much more wakeful and aware. They now sat up, open eyed, and opened their mouths and begged for food (called “gaping”).

~ 16 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Gaping © Mike Spinak

At this point, the elder chick was starting to lift its stubby and bare wings a little. I wish I could have made a better picture of this, but I had to take what I could get, when it happened.

~16 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Lifting Its Wings © Mike Spinak

Here’s the mother feeding the elder chick. I shot this at f/10, hoping to keep the birds sharp, while keeping the background noticeably softer, separated from the birds, and less visually confusing. I used a shutter speed of 1/1,250th of a second, to try to prevent motion blur. That might seem like a very fast shutter speed, but it’s actually still fairly borderline, for capturing these extremely fast moving animals. To choose my exposure (before the mother came in) I spot metered on the brightest parts of the nest, and figured the brightest parts of the mother’s white neck feathers would be slightly brighter than that. I pre-focused on the chick’s face, just before the mother came to feed. I knew I’d have to adjust the focus further, from there, when the mother arrived and they moved around – but pre-focusing gave me a close starting point, so that ensuing adjustments would be small and quick to make.

Feeding ~16 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick © Mike Spinak

Two days later, the elder chick had lost its baby-like appearance, to my eye. It was still clearly sub-adult, but seemingly more adolescent than infant. The beak was getting darker, losing the egg tooth, and was now perhaps two thirds as long its mother’s. It’s feathering covered its body fairly well in all but a few spots, and no longer looked scraggly. The bits of fluffy baby down now stood out sharply from the adult feathers. The elder chick was now so large that it tended to sit on the nest, rather than in the nest. It was also much more alert and aware of its surroundings, especially paying attention to the activities of the egrets and herons nesting above.

~18 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick © Mike Spinak

Here’s a family portrait, with the chicks begging their mother for food. You can see that the elder chick, which was nearer to the camera, was getting almost as large as its mother. You can also see that the younger chick was noticeably less developed – smaller, with a shorter beak and patchier feathers.

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Family Portrait ~Day 18 © Mike Spinak

The next day, various behaviors were becoming much more prominent, with the elder chick.

These increased behaviors included wing stretches -

~19 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird Chick (Calypte anna) Stretching Its Wings © Mike Spinak

- and tongue flicking -

~19 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Flicking Its Tongue © Mike Spinak

- and preening -

~19 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird Chick (Calypte anna) Preening © Mike Spinak

- and a little bit of experimental wing flapping. At this point, it was perhaps more like wing waving.

~19 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Flapping Wings © Mike Spinak

Two days later, the chicks were so large that they not only sat on top of the nest, rather than in the nest, they also spent most of their time facing opposite directions, apparently to stay out out of each other’s way.

Anna's Hummingbird Chicks (Calypte anna) Facing Opposite Directions © Mike Spinak

At this stage, the younger chick often seemed to mimic the elder sibling.

Younger Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Mimicking Elder Chick © Mike Spinak

The chicks seemed to get along well with each other. Besides mimicking each other, they occasionally seemed to nuzzle and snuggle each other. I didn’t see them fight with each other at all. They didn’t seem to compete for food or space or anything else. Perhaps this was due to their mother keeping them well fed, or due to their age differences. Whatever the reason, they were not antagonistic toward each other, as far as I could tell. This is in stark contrast with many other species of birds, where sibling rivalry is often deadly. For example, at one point while photographing the hummingbird nest, I heard a “thud” behind me. Turning around, I saw a black-crowned night heron chick had fallen from the nest above, and died instantly on impact. This was likely due to a sibling ejecting it from the nest. In fact, I had seen three other dead black-crowned night heron chicks on the ground nearby, on a previous morning.

Black-Crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) Chick Possible Fratracide © Mike Spinak

Back to the Anna’s chicks – the elder chick now ventured out to the edge of the nest, and perched there. As well it should. The chick was now ~21 days old, and about ready to fly off.

21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird(Calypte anna) Chick Perched On the Nest Edge © Mike Spinak

This chick seemed eager to fly, and repeatedly stood on the edge of the nest and flapped its wings furiously. Unfortunately for me, it did this while facing away from me; thus my pictures were less than ideal. Perhaps it was because its mother had been on that branch when encouraging the chick to fly, or because the chick was facing toward a direction with something to fly to, rather than the open road in my direction. Whatever the reason, the elder chick always flapped facing away from me.

~21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Flapping Wings © Mike Spinak

I was hoping to see and photograph the elder chick leaving the nest. Alas, it was not to be. The chick flew away in the evening, after I left. The next day, I saw it flying around the tree tops, following its mother.

The day after the elder chick left the nest, the younger chick was about 20 days old. The mother seemed more eager to rush this second chick to fly than with the first chick. Meanwhile, the second chick seemed less eager.

Another regular viewer of this nest told me that she’d seen the mother removing some of the nest material, the previous night. I didn’t witness this, but I could see that there were missing patches in some spots, from what had previously been there. This could perhaps be a way to make the nest less welcoming for the chick, to induce it to leave the nest.

To my eye, the chick did not yet appear developed enough to fly. For example, here’s what its wing development looked like, at this point.

~20 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Wing Development © Mike Spinak

But mother knows best.

The mother’s next strategy to compel the chick to move out seemed to be flying in, then – rather than immediately feeding the chick, as in the past – briefly waiting a couple inches away, calling the chick to come (out of the nest) to her.

Mother Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Waiting for ~20 Day Old Chick to Come to Her © Mike Spinak

The chick didn’t budge. So, the mother leaned in and fed the chick. However, the mother fed the chick from a somewhat more sideways position, while standing on the branch, rather than directly downward, while standing on the edge of the nest, as in the pictures, above. Apparently the chick (now nearly as large as its mother) was getting too tall for the mother to feed straight down from the edge of the nest.

Mother Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Feeding ~20 Day Old Chick © Mike Spinak

The mother’s apparent next step to compel the chick to fly was to pluck away the chick’s down feathers. Presumably, this was a sign that the chick was now able to thermoregulate itself as an adult, without the additional insulation, and also a sign that the chick now needed to be more aerodynamic (since it was about time to start flying).

Mother Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Plucking Down from ~20 Day Old Chick

Mother Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Plucking Down from ~20 Day Old Chick © Mike Spinak

The chick occasionally fluttered its wings a bit, that day, but it just didn’t yet have what it takes to fly.

The next day (when the younger chick was about twenty-one days old) seemed more promising for flying away from the nest. The chick had a much more adult look, now.

~21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird Chick in Profile © Mike Spinak

The chick was now getting quite large. When it fully sat up, it looked outlandishly oversized for its little nest.

~21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte Anna) Chick On the Nest © Mike Spinak

The chick became much more exploratory, watching everything going on around the nest, reaching out for everything within touching distance of the nest, and – most of all – tasting everything nearby. I’d guess that this was part of the learning process for a chick about to fly to learn what’s food and what isn’t.

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Tasting Everything Nearby © Mike Spinak

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Tasting Everything Nearby © Mike Spinak

Like its elder sibling had, the chick now spent a lot of time preening its feathers.

~21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Preening © Mike Spinak

After preening, it also spent much of its time stretching its wings. Although some small patches of bare, pink skin still showed through at the bases of the wings, the chick looked (to my eye) ready to start flying.

~21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Stretching Its Wings © Mike Spinak

Now, when the mother would come in to feed the chick -

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Mother Feeding ~21 Day Old Chick © Mike Spinak

- she’d sometimes stick around for a few moments after feeding, and press right down on top of her chick while flapping her wings. Perhaps this was teaching the chick. Perhaps it was nudging the chick’s flying instincts to kick in. Perhaps both, or neither.

Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Mother Flapping Its Wings Pressed Atop Chick © Mike Spinak

Energized with a belly full of regurgitated insects and nectar, and perhaps incited by its mother’s example, the chick diligently practiced flapping its wings shortly after each feeding. Like a toddler learning to walk, the first tries were a little wobbly.

~21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick's Unstable Wing Flapping © Mike Spinak

Soon the chick learned how to stabilize itself, keeping its head and body steady while only its wings moved. It stood on the edge of the nest for long flapping practice sessions, while rotating about.

~21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Flapping Wings Facing Away © Mike Spinak

21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird (Calypte anna) Chick Flapping Wings Facing Right © Mike Spinak

~21 Day Old Anna's Hummingbird Chick Flapping Its Wings Facing Front © Mike Spinak

I was thrilled to watch the chick learning to fly. I was eager to see it lift off the nest for the first time, and I excitedly anticipated its maiden flight. That didn’t work out. The weather was getting darker and gloomier as the day progressed. I was already at my camera’s maximum ISO and my lens’s maximum aperture, and was having to lower my shutter speeds slower than 1/100th of a second. (I could’ve used flash, of course. In fact, other photographers on the scene for the fly off were using flash; and I even had a flash on my camera. However, I didn’t like the look, and chose to avoid using the flash.) And then the clouds became even darker, and pouring rain began. I left. That was the last I saw of the chick, which presumably flew away some time that day.

Witnessing and photographing these chicks growing up was deeply moving for me, as well as informative. I hope this photo essay conveyed some of that to you, too.

Thanks for reading this.

Anna’s Hummingbird Mother and Chicks (Calypte anna), Palo Alto Baylands, Palo Alto, California

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

Ocean Reflection, #3 ©Mike Spinak

I’m going to take things in a different direction, today. This post is not about photography.

When I was 14, I met a kindred spirit. He had a fiery spark of creativity, and so did I. We rapidly became closest friends. Every day, we’d get together, and draw and paint for hours, learning draughtsmanship, and learning about art. I was a fine draughtsman; my friend was better. We also wrote poetry, and made mixed media sculpture out of everything from melted LP records to animal bones we found. He was very much a part of my development as an artist, which is, obviously, a big part of who I am, today.

We also played with our chemistry sets, together. We learned about the opposite sex, and discussed girls. We discussed anything and everything. We discovered and listened to music, together – The Doors, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Blue Oyster Cult, King Crimson, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and many others. We read and discussed literature, together – A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Siddhartha, The Stranger, and more.

We dropped out, together; hitchhiked around the West, together; lived homeless, together; lived on a commune, together. He was my closest friend for a number of years, and my partner in many adventures.

We eventually drifted apart, somewhat. We focused on different arts; I became a writer, and he became a guitarist. We settled down hundreds of miles apart. We got busy with other stuff – lovers, kids, work, and so on.

I still always thought warmly of him, remembered the good times with him, and considered him a dear friend. We stayed loosely in touch. We’d call each other once or twice per year and catch up, and write each other emails on each other’s birthdays.

Last year, on his birthday, I sent him an email, and never got a reply. I tried calling some time later, but couldn’t reach him. Somehow, I’d lost contact with him, I thought.

This last Wednesday, I got a notification from Facebook that his little sister requested to be Facebook friends with me. She told me that he’s dead. He’d died last year, and she didn’t know how to get in touch with me, until now. She asked me to call her, for her to tell me more about his death.

I called her on Friday, and she told me.

She told me that the sheriff and the coroner said it was apparently a murder-suicide, and closed the case. Their official version is that my friend shot his (common law) wife (who survived, with a shot to the shoulder), then shot his step-daughter dead, and then killed himself.

She then told me that she saw the crime scene, read the autopsy report, and she doesn’t believe the official version. She thinks his wife shot their daughter dead, then shot him dead, then shot herself, and then framed my friend.

She told me about a number of discrepancies in the case. For example, he was found dead with the gun in his right hand – when he’s left handed. Also, his supposedly self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head was not from point-blank range (i.e. not with the gun pressed against his head). He was found to have fractures on the back of his head, as though he’d perhaps been bludgeoned from behind, before his death.

I have a very hard time imagining my friend murdering his kid, shooting his wife, and then killing himself. I’ve known him for a long time, and for a large part of that time, I knew him better than anybody else. He was a very kind, loving, gentle person. Murder-suicide is just inconceivable, completely in contradiction with the person I knew. He was perhaps somewhat unstable – he cared perhaps too deeply about the plight of others, and took on all the burdens of the world – and they weighed too heavily upon him for him to handle. But he was utterly kind, and he was pacifistic.

I recognize that personalities are somewhat plastic, and they can be changed quickly and without foreshadowing by such things as schizophrenia, clinical depression, drug addiction, brain tumors, traumatic head injuries, and so on. And, from this distance, with such little interaction, it’s possible that there were things going on of which I was not aware.

Nevertheless, I have a very hard time believing he did this. As I’ve come to find out, his wife was arrested for stabbing him, in 2008. It seems plausible to me that she did this.

I did a bit of research, and found out some stuff. But my ability to research this sort of thing only goes so far – and there’s probably nothing to be gained by researching this, anyway.

I’ve been quite stricken by the revelations of the last few days. I’m deeply shocked and saddened.

I’ve been thinking about this. Here are some of my thoughts:

Every time I say goodbye to my loved ones, I make it a point to give them hugs and kisses, thank them for spending time with me, tell them that they make me happy, and tell them I love them.

My friend’s death underscores the importance of doing this, while we still can.

I’ll never know exactly what transpired, nor why, but the whole thing makes me realize that there’s more I need to tell my loved ones, emphatically and often.

I need to tell them that I will do absolutely whatever I can to be there for them and help them in their times of need, and they should never hesitate to ask me to help when they truly need it.

I also need to tell them how much I value them.

I need to do my best to make sure they know these well enough to come prominently to mind, in times of desperation.

I feel like ,”If only I had known that things were so dire…”, and also “If only he’d known I’d have done anything to help him to get into a better situation…”. Thus, I wonder how I could have done better at knowing and conveying.

While I don’t think I was negligent nor responsible, I do wonder whether this all could have been prevented or lessened if I’d intervened. On some level, I have to see this as a profound failure of our friendship “safety net”, so to speak, to recognize and avert impending crisis. It means I need to refine my social habits with my loved ones, to do my best for those I care about.

I’m still trying to figure out how to do better, but it seems clear to me that conveying love and fostering open communication must be necessary starting points.

To everyone reading this: Please, go give your loved ones hugs and kisses, now, tell them how important they are to you, and let them know that you’ll always be there for them.

Thank you for reading this.

Ocean Reflection, Number 3, Santa Cruz, California

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

Slumber Party, 2, California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) ©Mike Spinak

Most photographers, these days, make use of one or more of the major photography websites, such as Flickr or Photo.net, for a variety of functions. Unfortunately, photographers often have a love-hate relationship with these sites (which I’ll  discuss more, in another article, soon). I’ve recently become aware of a photography website which seems a lot more agreeable and promising than most: 500px. I asked Ian Sobolev, one of the founders and the Creative Director of 500px, whether I could briefly interview him. He kindly agreed. I would have liked to interview him through video conference, and record it; unfortunately, that was not possible, because I currently have laryngitis. So, we did the interview by email.

Here is the interview:

Mike: Thank you for taking the time for this interview.

Anyone who visits 500px quickly discovers that the quality of the photography tends to be much higher than the photography on most other sites. Is this due to a purposeful decision on your part? If so, what’s the thinking behind this decision? And how did you implement it?

Ian: 500px started a while ago, more than 8 years actually, as a community in LiveJournal. I wanted to get the best photos from photographers around me, so I created and managed the community for a while. It’s a deliberate decision on my part. The community grew, we launched a web-site in 2005, and in 2009 I and Oleg Gutsol co-founded 500px Inc. and completely redesigned and re-thought the site, and launched it on Halloween night in October 2009.

We did implement some interesting solutions for that. First of all, it’s the algorithm that keeps fresh and awesome photos in constant rotation. The formula itself is quite complex, but the idea is simple — fresh photos get higher ranking, and the more people vote, the higher the rank. We don’t want to focus a lot on rankings, so we try to tell people that photo quality has nothing to do with it (and the rating falls with time, so even greatest photo of all time in just a year will have a really low rating). We also adjust our rankings of inclusion to Popular, so it’s getting harder to get to the Popular with time, thus increased quality of photos.

Secondly, we have a team of editors, who create and promote different collections of photos. These collections are posted on Facebook, Twitter, Blog and are picked up by other blogs, so photographers get a lot of extra attention to their works.

And thirdly, by showing only great photos and reinforcing this principle helps people realize that this is not a place for their family photos, even though we are not against those — they will be just ignored by the public. All this lead to an interesting effect — the quality of the photos in Popular is constantly improving, and comparing top photos from just half a year ago shows a great leap in quality. So I’m very excited to find out how it will play out in the future.

Mike: Beside making efforts to showcase great photography, 500px’s mission statement, Terms of Service, design, and features all seem to indicate a friendlier attitude toward photographic artists than one finds on many other sites. What is 500px’s philosophy about its relationship with photographers?

Ian: When we started 500px, we wanted to make sure it can represent all the aspiring and professional photographers out there. So, for example, when we crafted the terms, we wanted to make sure that all the copyrights are retained by their authors, and that all photos can have a chance to be shown on 500px, including artistic nude. Of course, there are some limitations (and a lot of work that has to be done), and we don’t accept pornography in any commonly-understandable way, so we try to talk with such authors and/or hide their photos. But mostly, any photo and any author has a chance to participate. We love our users — and as we grew from a community of about 3-4 thousand members at launch to about 65,000 (and will probably add 15,000 more this month), it becomes a little harder to support and reply to everyone. But we still try to do that, by giving advice, commenting, solving problems, etc. That’s part of our team’s philosophy to be open about everything and to be there to help when we can. We actually try to build the most open company in the world, and so we are never ashamed to reveal any stats, or to acknowledge any problem that may arise. This is something we ourselves believe and love, when we see that in other companies as well.

Mike: Could you please explain how 500px would like to benefit photographers, and outline how 500px’s features help photographers with their needs?

Ian: There are actually several things that we do. First, it is our mission to help photographers excel in their field. We do that by showing their photography to the world. We have algorithms that help even amateur photographers get to the top of the Popular and become successful (e.g. someone could have average photos, but everyone has their gems — so the system helps find and promote them). Which means thousands of viewers for popular photos each day. We also have editors, who pick the best photos and feature them in our communities. These collections, selected by Editors, are theme-based, and can be named, for example, as “Red Hair”, or “Orange Mood” and feature different photos. Those collections are often picked up by different blogs, so the authors get all the attribution and their art is distributed way beyond just one site.

We are photographers ourselves, so when we build something, we always have a thought in our minds — would we use it ourselves? So that’s why we try to do things that are relevant (like integrating a store to sell prints — available for free to all users), or useful (like portfolios, which take away the pain of hosting and promoting own portfolio) or just pleasant (like promoting author’s work). And as for upcoming features, we want to build iPhone and iPad apps — so that photography can be truly mobile and available to millions more users that can, with help of striking imagery, help them discover their new hobby — photography.

Mike: On the subject of upcoming features: I’ve heard from photographers who are considering migrating from other sites to 500px, asking about a a few things they specifically want. Do you have plans to make 500px read title and keyword data, and automatically populate those fields? Are there any plans to make posted URLs appear as working links? If so, can you give us an idea when to expect these? Also, are there plans to add forums to 500px? If so, can you share with us what you envision, and when?

Ian: That’s some very good questions. Firstly, yes, we are working on meta data, so how we already support description and some geo-tagging, and will continue to work to automatically add all the meta data that is in the files, as well as allow geo-tagging. That’s a high priority for us. With respect to comments and links that appear as links — is it not that simple. Reworking commenting system is a complex task, and we plan some very interesting changes to it, but I cannot give any specific schedule as to when it may happen. It we add more hands to the team, we will be able to plan a little better. We’ve heard some requested with regards to the forums, and it is something we discussed a lot within the team. My personal opinion is that forums by itself are outdated — they are old, often hard to find and usually consist of a very small (but tight) community. What we considered making in the foreseeable future is special pages, divided by cities, states or provinces and countries. So each geographical unit will have it’s own page with photos from this place (e.g. see all photos of Paris), as well as a discussion for all Parisians or people who plan to visit and take picture of Paris. So that should touch a very important point — organizing people by their natural habitat

And on the other note, I know it sounds strange to say that we don’t know when some of the features are coming out, but it all depends of the schedule. For example, this week is super-crazy for us. We’ll have our first TV appearance [Editor's Note: This will be on the Business News Network in Toronto, on the show The Pitch; the airing date will be soon, but is not yet scheduled], first big media interview (with GigaOM), as well as our first DemoCamp (we’ve been on a couple, but never as presenters), and first TEDx talk (we are presenting too). So that takes a big chunk of our time. Another part is our quick growth — that means supporting much larger systems. Just a week ago we served 5 million files a day, now the number is 10 million. That means taking time from development and putting it into support so that the site works smoothly. That happens when you grow too quickly — you have to manage unmanageable, but everyone still expect only the top results from you. And that’s what we hope to do.

Mike: Is there anything else you’d like to let readers know about 500px?

Ian: The idea behind 500px is to make it a great place not just for other photographers, but for ourselves as well. Just today I was looking through Upcoming, and occasionally taking a look at Recommended photos below and realized that I’m discovering new photographers that were with us for months, and I’m absolutely unaware of them (here’s one example: http://500px.com/Cauta). And I’m adding more and more wonderful photographers to my list, and I’m simply amazed at all this talent that keeps coming here (and I keep discovering it, to much of my surprise).

We are also here for the long term. We have plans for the next 3 years, and we don’t plan on a quick turnaround or anything like that. We love our users, and we love photography. So we want to make it a beautiful and friendly place (actually, I want to make it the friendliest place ever — so we have no tolerance for hate comments of stuff like that). Of course, as the site growths, it is getting tougher, but we keep on trying, and hope that our users are here for us — to support us as well, as we support them, to allow them to build lasting relationships with each other and discover more great art, people, and places.

So that’s what 500px is about. We want to make it big, like Flickr big, but at the same time we want to stay small and cozy place. That’s a one tough goal, but everything we do now and will do in the future, we hope, will be reflective to that goal and values. And if anything is wrong or there’s any chance I can help — I’m always open at ian@500px.com and at my cell +1-647-271-3356.

Yes indeed, you can publish my email and phone number. Just this morning I helped one Toronto user, who called me (that was novelty to me!) and I helped him activate his account. So if there’s anything, I’ll try to help.

Mike: Thank you, again.

Slumber Part 2, California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus), Monterey Bay, California

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917.

Elephant Seal Bull Coming Ashore, Mirounga Angustirostris ©Mike Spinak

In my last post, I said that practice doesn’t make perfect, but effort may. By “practice”, I’m referring to exercise for the purpose of acquiring skill.

I don’t practice my photography. I can’t recall ever having done photography practice at all. I quite possibly never will.

That might sound surprising. Professional baseball players practice batting. Likewise, most professionals in most fields practice what they do. Why don’t I?

It makes sense for Major League Baseball players to practice during the off-season, so that they can perform at their best, when it counts. The same kind of reasoning is true for most other sports, and many other types of endeavors. However, with photography, there is no equivalent to an “off-season” and “on-season”. Thus, there is no need for dry runs. You can make every photo opportunity and every shot count.

If you want to learn how to spot meter, you don’t need to sit in your living room and take practice shots spot metered on the door, the wall, the window, the carpet, etc. If you want to learn macro photography, you don’t need to take practice shots of pawns on a chessboard. If you want to learn off-camera flash photography, you don’t need to take practice shots of your bored son sitting on a stool with his hands in his lap, staring vacantly. Nothing is stopping you from doing real photography – i.e., trying to make worthwhile photos – and learning your spot metering, macro skills, flash techniques, etc.,  in real photography situations, instead.

Of course, I’m broadly generalizing. I recognize that there are some situations which some photographers may encounter where it makes sense to practice with a dry run before doing the real thing. So, don’t take this as an absolute rule, if it doesn’t apply to you. But, otherwise:

If you want to better your photography, then treat every shutter actuation as an opportunity to make something significant. Treat it that way by making your best effort. Learn by actually doing, not by setting unnecessary, artificial boundaries, and then hollowly going through the motions.

Don’t shoot for the purpose of acquiring skill. Shoot for the purpose of making good photos.

Acquiring skill will then naturally follow.

“Practice”, as it is most often done by photographers, is a rationalization for half-hearted effort. Practicing is a crutch. Practice doesn’t make perfect. Practice makes practice. Effort may make perfect.

Many photographers spend most of their photography time and energy practicing, rather than doing. If you’re one of them: What are you waiting for?

When I started photography, I told myself, “There are enough mediocre pictures in the world; there’s no point in me contributing more”, and, “I’m only going to press the trigger when I’m absolutely convinced this one could be something special”, and “In that case, I better try damned hard if I’m going to come up with any photos at all”. I stuck firmly to this for my first several years of photography. (Ultimately, I eased up on this because there are times in professional photography when expediency must be the priority.) I still have strong tendencies to refuse to allow myself to actuate my camera unless I have compelling reason to think the result could be special.

If you want to get on the fast track to good photography, then I suggest: No rationalizing insufficient effort. No dithering with practice runs. Think. Observe. Plan. Make a worthwhile photo. Or refuse to press the trigger. This will force you to think about what you’re doing, and make a real effort.

If you want to excel at photography, trying your utmost to make every shot the best you can do is a more effective path than doing systematic technique exercises in controlled situations to gain proficiency.

Thanks for reading.

Elephant Seal Coming Ashore, Mirounga angustirostris, Piedras Blancas State Beach, San Simeon, California

All pictures and text are © Mike Spinak, unless otherwise noted. All pictures shown are available for purchase as fine art prints, and are available for licensed stock use. Telephone: (831) 325-6917. For workshops, please go to http://www.hteiw.com/