Black Skimmers with chicks at Indian Shores, Florida

Nesting Black Skimmers with chicks can easily be seen at Indian Shores, Florida. While my last visit was not perfectly timed and the chicks were a bit bigger than I would have liked, the shoot was definitely worthwhile and I created a few photographs that I am pretty happy with.

The photograph above depicts an adult Black Skimmer having given a fish away to its chick for breakfast. I am very pleased with having all three subjects with good head angles and a very clean background. Note that this photograph was created very early in the morning in a shaded area, hence ISO 2000. The 5d mark III manages noise so well that a level ISO like this is not too much of a problem. My advice when you have multiple subjects is to take a lot of shots so that you increase your chances of having everybody with a good head angle. The image would have been even stronger if the beak of the chick did not overlap over the adult’s body.

The Black Skimmer chick photograph above is a nice back-lit situation. Sometimes the opportunity arises where one may create a rim of light around the subject thanks to the combination of the light coming from behind and a somewhat dark background. The effect can be seen above with the silhouette of the bird behind lit up with light. I really like the effect coming from the back-lit sand grains 🙂

The image above is a nice creation, but the 2nd image (running chick) is a much better back-lit image. Why? The fact that the background is not dark enough takes away a lot from the rim of light effect. Had I been able to find a different angle (lower on the ground) and get more shade in the background, it would have turned a lot stronger in my opinion.

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Steven