New Holland Honeyeater triptych

Photographic triptychs are a series of three linked images that are framed together; some bird images seem to need to be displayed as a triptych to tell their story. With the New Holland Honeyeater triptych I hope to show how birds can look totally different depending on how they are holding their feathers – no wonder birding can be so confusing when you start out!

New Holland Honeyeater
Canon 5D Mk III, 100-400mm L IS USM, 1/2500, f/5.6, 1/3 EV, ISO 800, focal length 400mm

The New Holland Honeyeater above looks sleek after a quick dip to cool down. Apart from the wetness this is how New Holland Honeyeaters generally look, they are slim-lined birds that measure 18cm and weigh about 20g. They are found from Perth to Brisbane and often visit gardens, particularly if banksias, grevilleas and similar species have been planted as they enjoy the nectar from the flowers. They are predominantly black and white with bold striations on their underparts, a bright yellow patch on their wings and yellow on the sides of their tails. Their white eyes look like glue-on goggle eyes while their de-curved bills are ideal for probing into flowers to gather nectar.

New Holland Honeyeater
Canon 5D Mk III, 100-400mm L IS USM, 1/1250, f/5.6, 1 EV, ISO 800, focal length 400mm

The honeyeater’s shape looks very different as it shakes water from its feathers.

New Holland Honeyeater
Canon 5D Mk III, 100-400mm L IS USM, 1/2500, f/5.6, 1/3 EV, ISO 800, focal length 400mm

After the shake the honeyeater ruffles its feathers before settling them back into their more usual place. Now it looks less like a sleek bird and more like a puffball.

New Holland Honeyeater triptych – DRAFT

Triptychs can have the three images in equal or unequal sizes, they can be placed horizontally or vertically, overlapping or not overlapping … there are no restrictions. I decided that the sleek image should keep its 3×2 aspect ratio while the other two should be square. I put the fluffed image on the left so the tail acted as a leading line into the triptych and horizontally flipped the last image to avoid all birds looking out of the picture. Flipping the image created a problem with the perch, see above, making it look disjointed.

New Holland Honeyeater triptych

For the final triptych I slightly rotated the horizon of the last image in an anti-clockwise direction until the perch flowed between the second and third images. To help more with the flow I cloned a smudge of greenery above the perch to match the greenery in the adjacent image.

This time last year I created a triptych that I called ‘Waiting for the fig to ripen’, it was dedicated to a valued friend and can be seen here: Silvereye triptych

Happy birding, Kim

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