Silvereye triptych

This post is dedicated to Tom Oliver, a passionate bird photographer and educator, who was taken suddenly and too soon.  The full version of the Silvereye on the left of the triptych was the last photo I shared with Tom – I miss you Tom and will always treasure the memory of our friendship. The Tom Oliver Award for Excellence in Bird Photography has been set up by Tom’s wife, Diane, and is being administered by Birdlife Australia.

Photographic triptychs are sets of three images that go together in some way, either as a story or to represent a place or concept.

I wanted to try making a triptych but hadn’t realised how much of a challenge it would be. I watched and rewatched online videos detailing how to create them using Lightroom 4 and Photoshop Elements 11 before choosing the Lr4 option.

I considered using the Gone fishing … images of an Eastern Great Egret from an earlier post. The images of the egret stalking, attacking and holding a fish could have been arranged in a stepping pattern across the canvas and would have told a story but I wasn’t sure if the quality of the images would justify the work of putting them together. Instead I choose to use images of tiny Silvereyes looking forward to eating a fig.

Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis)

I chose two of my favourite Silvereye images which I altered a little to fit the triptych. I flipped the image on the left so that the bird was looking at the dewy fig instead of away from it. I experimented with different coloured backgrounds and different sized margins and opted for the simplest look I could get. I made the central image 1/3 the size of the main images and hoped that the overal effect would be balanced. After the process I have a whole new respect for triptychs.

Next week I hope to share some images from my recent trip to Lord Howe Island where I spent several days perched on the side of a cliff enjoying the sight of gracefully magnificent Red-tailed Tropicbirds.

Happy birding, Kim

PS My apologies for the bug that is making the ‘newer/older entries’ buttons at the top of the page (but not at the end of the page) temperamental – it’s very odd, hopefully I’ll be able to sort it out soon.