14 February 2009

Time for portraits


Becasue kelp gulls are so common along the South African coastline, we often tend to overlook them when it comes to photigraphy, but they do make interesting subjects.

This guy very willingly posed for his portrait at Port St Francis last week end. The truth is that I was trying to get him to fly off, so that I could photograph him in flight, but he stubbornly refused to move.

9 comments:

myonlyphoto said...

Hey Max-e we have them here too. They are in fact neat to photograph. This is very nice close up photo.

Anna :)

Firefly the Travel Guy said...

When you want them to fly, they sit and when you want them to sit, they fly. You can win. But an outstanding portrait as consolation prize.

Eleanor said...

Magnificent photo! I love seagulls. While growing up in Cape Town, we used to take a bag of stale bread to the docks every Saturday afternoon to 'feed the gulls'. (But I am surprised you didn't find just one teeny elephant with a red Valentine's rose tucked in its trunk to celebrate the Day!!)

Jane Hards Photography said...

I agree common birds that make great photography subject . This is superb

Anonymous said...

Super! I like the angle .. and his eye and beak are so clear. The previous skywatch photo is beautiful! Most of the bird is outlined in white so that it does look as if it's a cutout and stuck on pretty blue paper.

shabby girl said...

Seagulls are one of my very favorite birds!
I agree, this angle is so unusual. Very nice!
Did you know the seagull chicks peck at that red dot to encourage their parents to give up their catch of the day?

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

This is one terrific shot Max!! Love it. I am sorry but I only saw your question on the plane museum today. We have been having problems with Vodacom 3G for three days now which it seems they are not getting sorted out, so I could only check up on comments today but I did leave you an answer.

Merisi said...

Whatever the circumstances,
you managed to get a wonderful portrait!

Birds to this to me all the time:
I want to will them to fly off,
put they stay. Trying to get a decent shot while they rest, off they fly. They are able to read our minds, I am sure of it.

Jeanne said...

Isn't he great? I love them and they have such *attitude*! Their call is one of the things I miss most about home. Good thing that we have their northern identical cousins here in the UK - the lesser black-backed gull - so I hear their call all the time to remind me of home!