Tell a Story with your Photos

Back in January I started a 365 day / year long photography project (365 Days of Birds). The goal with this effort, as well as any learning opportunity is to obviously improve one's skills. The idea of taking a photograph every day for a year forces oneself to think long and hard about the end result, creating a photograph that people want to view.

Even before this project, I was working hard towards becoming a better photographer. Here are some tips I've learned from my recent efforts both with respect to bird photography, and often photography in general:

Tell a story with your photograph
With animals and birds, the "eyes" make all the difference. Your subject should appear to be looking directly out of the photograph at you, or if the view is directed elsewhere ... a story should be told with that point of view.
Even when you think birds and animals are motionless, they are moving albeit perhaps very slowly. When you are zooming in your subject, which is almost always in nature photography, the result of any motion is greatly magnified in your photo.
My rule of thumb for bird photography exposures is:

1/800 of a second maximum exposure for larger slow moving birds
1/1000 of a second maximum exposure for smaller fast moving birds

The golden hour is truly golden for bring out details in nature photography (the hour directly after sunrise, and directly before sunset). In addition, birds tend to feed right after sunrise. The same may not be true by sunset as birds will have fed enough already for the day.
Aperture priority is a waste of time ... use if for landscape photos w/o motion
If you find an interesting bird or animal ... wait! Patience is a virtue. While feeding it is amazing how territorial squabbles will arise with other animals and birds you don't even see are near by. Thus keep your eyes and ears open. Sudden conflict may appear which will create great photo opportunities.

Here are a few examples which demonstrate my methods. I hope you like these photos. If so, please link to my 365 Days of Birds Project or my Flickr Feed to seem more examples of my work. I license my work under Creative Commons w/o charge given appropriate attributions and link backs.

1: Crow in Sight! 2: Attack! (click either image to view at full size)