I was walking down this famous section of Central Park on this beautiful summer day, I spotted this group of people some with equipment that came close to matching or exceeding mine (at least the equipment I left home today), trying to capture this great white egret.
I smiled a warm smile both inside and out, for I knew instantly from looking at the sun and time of day how hard a task they had in front of them to capture some quality images, given what equipment they had to work with.
Four in the afternoon on a summer day is not a flattering time to try and capture a lot of shots unless you've got some kind of shade to work with. Given the location where the egret was hunting in and the available spots to stand to capture it, they were all standing in as good spot as they could if they hoped to capture him. However they probably would have been better off with at least a 400mm or more telephoto lens rig setup mounted on a gimbal head, sitting on top of a mono pod, then go for some back lit head shots. Those could have been great shots. But with the focal lengths they were working with, not much better than the 200mm I had in my bag, the potential for really nice shots were slim.
But when you live in Manhattan shots like the ones they were getting were about as good as they could hope for, unless they made a concerted effort to come here every week and stalk this bird constantly. Then they would surely run into it at some point in favorable lighting and better locations composition wise. But if photography is a hobby for them as it is for me, then when your free time lands you an opportunity to capture some bird far more regal than our ubiquitous pigeons, you take what you can get.
Now as I have lived in Staten Island since 87' and have easy access to Clove lake I've already captured a dozen shots of great whites better than anything they were going to get today, and probably will get another dozen in the future, so there was no incentive for me to walk up to their location and join in on the shooting.
However pulling up and capturing their attempts to photograph this elegant avian fisherman with it's beautiful white plumage, was something I found myself very motivated to do.
