Zen and the Art of Hummingbird Photography

“Patience, and shuffle the cards.”

–Cervantes

Don Quixote

First, a few words about my photographs.

I am not a photographer, unless you mean in the sense that I take pictures; in which case, we are all photographers.

My camera is a point and shoot Canon, specifically the Canon PowerShot SD 1000. For a point and shoot, it does have a lot of options, but oh my gosh, my kingdom for manual focus.

My principle strategy is to take lots and lots and lots of pictures. More than any sane person would take. And out of a hundred, I will have two or three that I am really pleased with, and these are what you see every day. ( I do hope that you like them, by the way.)

But I’m not a professional, I’ve never taken any classes, and I don’t have special equipment. I’ve read that this specific camera is the most popular model currently on the market; I hope this admission prompts some people to get out there and take more pictures.

Second, a few words about hummingbirds.

Until three days ago, I had seen hummingbirds exactly two times. To me, they were like mythical creatures; flights of fancy. Maverick received a feeder for Christmas (thanks, Nanny) and we gamely put it up, but we did not expect tiny miracles to come to our window.

A hummingbird is a teeny tiny wisp of a bird, about as long as your ring finger. His wings beat between 40 and 80 times per second and he flies at speeds up to 60 mph. When he zooms away you can hear his wings buzzing, like something out of a cartoon. He is so agonizingly cute that I want to catch him and cup him in my hands and kiss him on his tiny emerald colored head. His feathers are like fish scales flashing in the light. He hovers, he darts, he brings happiness to my heart.

So now, the question: Can I do the hummingbirds justice with a point and shoot camera? Can I capture their exuberance and the sheer joy they bring me? Freeze the busy whirlwind, the whirling dervish, the blur of wings? It seems an impossible task.

The White Queen says, Six impossible things before breakfast.

Luckily for me, I eat my breakfast quite late. So, today as I did yesterday, I’m off to take pictures of hummingbirds.