Swan Dive

hummingbird in flight

I hope you have some where you live

Just imagine if this were in focus. I would be a god! I decided to keep it anyway because of the arc of the wings. To hell with me, hummingbirds are gods. Or popcorn, if the cat jumps high enough. A real god would understand. I like this one for the colors and the energy spraying off the little bastard.

I don’t know what other people do. I just sit in a patio chair a few feet from the feeder with my Pentax and my telephoto lens and hope it works. Mostly auto-focus, sometimes manual. Auto-focus on a hummingbird is goofy, but sometimes you get cool effects like everything all fuzzy except a foot. I could take pictures of hummingbirds all day. It’s like playing the slots, except you win more.

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John Hamilton Farr lives in Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” See BUFFALO LIGHTS, TAOS SOUL, ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE, and THE HELEN CHRONICLES. He has been publishing online since 1996 (Zoo Zone, Farr Site, MacFaust, GRACK!, FarrFeed). This JHFARR.COM site is the master online writing archive. Links to all current sites including NFT collections at linktree. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on About page.  

  • Rita August 27, 2013, 10:53 AM

    I like the incredible pattern on his/her neck/breast area. I have never seen that before. What else do we never see until you stop motion?

    • JHF August 27, 2013, 11:18 AM

      This one’s a male. You can tell by the reflective throat patch. I think it’s just a kid, though, because overall the markings are kind of raggedy.

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