In a slight departure from mostly discussing my photographic projects, I am posting this bird’s nest photograph from my morning walk today. It is entirly a staged composition. Okay, I did find this small abandoned nest sitting on the sidewalk and I am not sure where it was located originally. The nest is pretty small and appears to be similar to some hummingbird nests we have found in our backyard lemon tree from time to time. I found it to be intricate, charming and needing some attention.
After picking the nest up, I made a quick assessment that it might make a nice photograph if this nest was sitting somewhere in the adjacent bushes. The darker brown nest with the contrasting white strands allows it to stand out in the greenery with the yellow flowers and the contrasting light brown leaves. I also decided that this composition would look interesting using my shallow depth of field process, so I opened the lens aperture almost wide open.
After the first exposure, I realized that some of the adjacent light brown leaves were going to be too visually distracting. So I kept removing one leaf at a time, making an exposure, then an assessment in order to determine how to tweak the arrangement further. This is the final version. I think the photograph has some metaphoric potential, as do most empty bird’s nest images, and hopefully not appearing a bit trite. Pseudo-Documentary, which must be a contemporary art practice, right?
Who know, this photograph might lead to the development of a project as well. Oh, since this was a fallen nest and would not be used again, I brought it home to consider other options.
Cheers!
Featured photograph: Bird’s Nest, Rancho Santa Margarita, copyright 2020 Douglas Stockdale
Medium Photo 2020 Workshop: Developing a Creative Book workshop that I will be leading from March, 19-22, 2020, a four-day extended weekend workshop in San Diego (workshop registration is now open and some seating is still available…sold out in 2019)
Medium Photo 2020 Lecture Series, I will be giving a one-evening lecture Artist Books as Art Objects on March 20th, from 7:30 – 9pm at the You Belong Here artist venue, located at 3619 El Cajon Blvd, San Diego, California 92104.
Singular Images 
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