Originally posted by swanlefitte I just took a photo of a Hooded Warbler as documentation. I could say I saw this particular bird at this particular place but it is just my word. If I post a picture of another hooded warbler, nothing is added to my word. Even the best photo ever of a Hooded Warbler is useless. My very crappy shot is proof of my word.
I guess it depends the intended purpose of our shots. Similar to your documentation of the warbler, a couple of years ago a Eurasian Sparrowhawk caught, killed and ate a bird in my garden. This species isn't uncommon around here, but we don't often see them, and especially not in the garden. The only camera I had immediately to hand was my JPEG-only, small sensor Pentax X-5 bridge camera. I took a shot of the hawk through my kitchen window, and with a little post-processing it didn't come out too badly, all things considered...
Now, there are plenty of sparrowhawk photos on the web that are much, much better than this, both documentary and artistic - but
this one is
mine, taken in
my garden... and, whilst it's not a great photo, I enjoy looking at it more than I would someone else's - not due to any artistic merit, but because It reminds me of that rare visit and gives me almost the same joy as the day I saw it. Like your warbler shot, there's no way of telling where my photo was taken - but
I know.