Socorro County, New Mexico.

For my final entry in the seven-day challenge, I picked a photo that is only about one year old. Last January, we visited the Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge in southern New Mexico. There were many photos that came from this trip, and if you  would like to see more, you can view them here.

This photo also turned into a bit of a training exercise in my learning how to use Lightroom to remove unwanted objects. If you go to the original post linked above and look at this photograph, you’ll notice some large pipes coming out of the ground in the lower left corner of the image. No doubt they are part of the irrigation system that provides water to the plants in this field that are used to provide feed to the large number of birds that spend time here. Thanks to the magic of Lightroom, the above image no longer contains any plumbing.

To capture those birds in flight, I needed a fast shutter speed and small aperture to keep a wide depth of field, necessitating a high ISO. Nikon D7000 f/32 1/320 sec. ISO-1250 Tamron 18-270 mm @ 50 mm. Post processing in Snapseed and Lightroom.

It’s been fun sharing my favorite nature photos. It was hard to be selective and pick out my absolute favorites, but it has given me some ideas of new prints to make and hang. Time to think about redecorating.

John Steiner