Sunday, January 08, 2006

Pigeons in the Park


My cousin Michelle, in downtown Providence. We had a great day roaming the streets for photo ops, and then a nice long lunch at Ri-Ra's.

This didn't turn out quite like I thought. Go to park, get shots of pigeons flying around Michelle. As it happened, a man and his young son were feeding the pigeons, so they refused to fly about on cue, instead being more interested in bread. Bread! Imagine it.

The little boy was busy throwing bread around willy-nilly, and then discovered the delightful past-time of throwing bread at me. In between dodging flying bits of bread and gently (or not so gently, depending on whether you are a pigeon or not) trying to get the @#$% pigeons to fly about (while Michelle waited patiently for me to shout "Smile!") the shutter got clicked here.

What Michelle failed to tell me prior to my explaining the whole pigeon idea was that she really didn't like pigeons very much, and I was under threat the whole time of "They better not drop anything on me!"

Michelle escaped unscathed from unsavory droppings, and the little guy never did actually hit me with any bread.

12 comments:

Edward said...

Love this shot! I think it's probably a little bit because I got a very similar one early last year:
http://artyste.com/gallery/March-2005/DSCF2930_800

Fun shots like these are some of the best.

MattO said...

Great composition and the motion blur is fantastic. Black and white is perfect for this shot. Great job.

Linda said...

very nice shot - the motion really works here. I'm like your sis - not too crazy about birds being around me, at least not close to me. I like them when they stay out of my personal space though.

Anonymous said...

I like this picture a lot, my favorite part is the playful look on Michelle's face...good work!

Love,
Brother

Vikas said...

Singled out ! I would have rated a 8 if this shot was in the challenge. Love the shot !!

Reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld, where George complains about pigeons breaking the code that they have with humans.

Jaime said...

Awesome action shot! You go! I really like that you used a shallow DOF. You captured alot of great detail too.

Elizabeth Abbott said...

Great story! But an even better pic!! I think this would have been super in the Singled Out challenge. Just love the composition of this shot.

Anonymous said...

I really like the shot you came up with. It has so much motion and the bird wings frame Michelle really well. B&w was a great choice.

kaye said...

Great shot! Love the blurred bird framing and her expression. Sounds like a fun afternoon!

Karen said...

I love this shot, the motion of the birds really makes it.

ursula said...

Love the contrast between movement blur and sharp girl/buildings and so on.

Bill Landry said...

So far, this is probably my favorite shot of yours.

I love the frantic, blurred action from the birds taking flight, which seems to better highlight the focus on your subject. Quite impressed with this shot.