After a year and a half of including a ‘pic of the week’ at the end of my weekly training summary, I’ve decided to let it stand as a post of its own.  I’m also implementing a rule that the Friday Foto needs to have been taken sometime in the last week.  No recycling.  I am doing this to keep me engaged in building my photography skills, and to make me work harder to get fresh shots.  Click here to see my previous Friday Foto posts.

The annual Canada Goose invasion is on in full force right now.  They reach a near pest-like status here on the Colorado Front Range, because they are so common.  Taking pictures of them is usually about as exciting as photographing a blank wall.

While my kids were playing at a park on Saturday, I decided to get the camera out and do some ‘target practice’ on the very active flock of geese that was in the nearby pond.  Everything pointed towards lame shots.  The sky was overcast and the lighting was bad, the subject was blah, etc.  That all changed when small groups started coming in one after the other and landing in the water.

I used a high shutter speed along with a moderately-high ISO setting to freeze this guy.  Then I was able to obliterate the sky in post-processing and give the shot a cool high key look that I think works really well.

Despite the fact that it’s ‘just a goose’, I like it a lot!

High Key Canada Goose
1/1250, f/5.6, 220mm @ ISO 640