[Michaelina2]

Check out:

What Instagram Can Teach Us About Bird Photography: The Most Photogenic Bird and Color Preferences

Cheers and enjoy the season… M

---

Last edited by Michaelina2; 02-13-2022 at 01:38 PM.

[bertwert]

Eh, I'm just going to take photos of whatever birds I can before they fly away

[jacamar]

I find the popular Hoopoes to be a bit over the top and have a strong affinity towards the least popular sandpipers, so I guess I'll just bumble along in my own sweet way and carry on taking pics of the birds that most appeal to me.

[biz-engineer]

It's one of these things written about photography. For landscape photography, we have the theory of composition, like equal distances between mountains, symmetry , rules of third and such, but in practice I've never been able to displace element of scenery to fit composition rules, especially mountains are rather heavy to move around. And I've never asked a bird to flip his colors to background colors according to Instagram preferences. Usually I was happy if the bird give me permission to get close enough and take a shot.

[JohnMc]

And I've never asked a bird to flip his colors to background colors according to Instagram preferences. Usually I was happy if the bird give me permission to get close enough and take a shot.

Humming birds do that w/o asking.

[normhead]

I have often wondered why I don't get more Blue Birds to photograph. Apart from my Blue Jays, none. Does instagram have a list of places where I can get images of the right coloured bird with the right coloured background? If not, their article is useless. I do everything I can to get birds to come to my yard, but, not all of even the ones who regularly live in the area do. For Gray Jays, I go to the park. For song sparrows I go to the dump. For waterfowl I go to lakes and rivers. This article appears to be nothing but a waste of time from a photographer's point of view.

Most of us will shoot anything available. If it's in front of us we'll get an image. If Instagram is suggesting we need to look for a specific set of circumstances and only shoot in those, well with all due respect, that would be incredibly limiting to the point of being a mental illness.

After all, I appreciate the variety of the images I take as much as the content of the individual images.

I like this image for it's clarity.


I like this image because it shows a bird that was appropriately afraid of the possibility I might be a predator and it shows how it survives in it's environment. Watching the possible predator from safe distance.


Which one I like most is irrelevant. They both have a place.

If the first bird had come around when the previous owner was here, he would have been Paul's lunch. It's a bird who knows that I bring food, and over time has learned that when I'm sitting in my blind, I'm harmless. Others in the neighbourhood only feed the wildlife they plan to shoot.

For those following Limpy (bird #1) we saw him last night at the feeder. He's been visiting us for almost 3 years now. That's a long time for a grouse to survive. The second one is one of this years chicks, there are still a few around from her brood, originally 6 in that group, now they've spread out a bit to different parts of the forest. However, the squirrels rabbits and grouse have become numerous, and the wolves and foxes are now making their ways through our woods almost every day. Limpy is relative safe, because those animals stay away from the area closest to our house, avoiding our dogs. The one in the tree is definitely at risk. Our trail cuts through it's territory, and both wolves and foxes from time to time follow our trails. It has every right to be nervous.

But, grouse's aren't blue. What's a guy to do?

You can wait a long time before a Blue Bird turns up in my woods or my yards, and I can't find a site that rents trained ones..

[luftfluss]

If I ever get to the point where I feel the need to consult Instagram for my photographic direction, just shoot me...

[bertwert]

If I ever get to the point where I feel the need to consult Instagram for my photographic direction, just shoot me...

Happily will do - just let me grab my KP and DA*55, I can always do with some portrait practice

[normhead]

If I ever get to the point where I feel the need to consult Instagram for my photographic direction, just shoot me...

Ditto if I ever submit an image to Instagram hoping for approval.

[Gopersuel]

Sorry... instagram? What is that?

[boriscleto]

Two years of being a shut-in. I'm owed some time this spring...

[swanlefitte]

It has some interesting data but from my vantage it is rare and unusual sightings that get the most likes. If 1000 cardinal photos all get 10 likes and the one photo of a frogmouth gets 100 likes is it that they like the frogmouth better or the uniqueness. You might only like a good cardinal photo vs liking a unique bird. If I had instagram very few cardinals would be liked but a frogmouth is a bird I didn't know existed until now.

[ramseybuckeye]

What I've noticed on Instagram is the "likes" really have less to do with quality of the photo and more about the poster's number of followers, not just birds but anything. I have some photos on Instagram, I post once in a while, without looking hard my most liked bird photo was red-bellied woodpecker. For kicks I looked up my "most liked" Flickr bird photos, and none of the top five or six were particularly good, but they were explored (no bluebirds by the way, closest was a blue-gray gnatcatcher)! Plus I think the pose of the bird, the detail in the photo, lot of things are as important as the color. Most of those Instagram likers are probably not even bird enthusiasts, and don't know a warbler from a crow.

[swanlefitte]

What I've noticed on Instagram is the "likes" really have less to do with quality of the photo and more about the poster's number of followers, not just birds but anything.

I believe the study adjusted for that. "The score normalizes absolute numbers of Likes for time and reach, that is, for how many people have presumably seen an image (ranging from 10,000 to 500,000 viewers per image for the accounts investigated in this study)."

[Des]

It's a study of humans, not a study of birds. Unfortunately, social media likes do seem to influence what people photograph - perhaps that will feed through to bird photography, as it does to every other type of photography. One year everyone wants a selfie in a field of sunflowers, the next they all want a photograph of a frogmouth. Which is bad news for frogmouths, but good news for oystercatchers and others that aren't on the fashion charts.

It's worth being aware of these unconscious biases, if only so we don't succumb to them, either when we like others' photos or take our own.

Most genuine birders are drawn to rarity and to birds with distinctive behaviour or striking characteristics, but even that is a bias of its own.