The Makings of a Great Photo! Look Out, Carol and Banjo!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Many of you might know Carol and Banjo on DoodleKisses, but what you might not know is she is a master of bird photography.  Recently on Facebook, she posted a series of shots with birds, quite literally, eating out of her hands.  She had no assistant helping her, but was able to hold the camera all by herself and get some great shots.  Well, this got me thinking that if Carol could take such awesome one-handed shots, imagine the masterpieces I could shoot if I had one or two assistants.  I guess it’s in my competitive nature to think I could one up Carol, especially with more help. What I always seem to forget is that the only assistants I have in my employ are not always willing participants and love to thwart me at every turn.

John spent the better part of the weekend with his leaf blower.  There were some things he had been putting off doing in the house, but every time I went to find him, he was outside in the garage.  Blowing leaves around is only a small part of the equation when any outside work has to be done.  The actual blowing of the leaves might take a couple of hours, but then there is the preparation.  There is almost always something wrong with something he has to use to get the job done and then the “tweaking” starts.  Or he needs to run somewhere for a part or up to the gas station for gas.  By the time he finishes a minor project the better part of a day is gone.

 

He used a snow blower for years that had one wheel that continued to fall off and still he refused to replace the darn thing.  One particularly bad snowstorm had us stuck in the house while we watched from the window as he blew a little snow, broke down, cussed, fiddled with something, and kept repeating these steps.  I hate being snowed in, actually get a little crazy, so I periodically went outside to offer my assistance by announcing if he didn’t speed up the process, I was going to make my own tracks in the driveway by attempting to drive right over him and his three wheeled blower.  Things only went further downhill when he told me someone had come by with a plow and offered to do our driveway for $75 and he had turned them down because he thought it was too much money. At that point, I told him to find the driver and tell him I was willing to give him a Keurig machine, one daughter, all the money in the house, and I would do anything and I meant anything to get our driveway plowed and all he said was, “the guy has a plow, he doesn’t need a blowhard.” He also added that he loved his Keurig.

 

So, in between me telling John there would be no more blowing on Saturday and him telling me “what else is new” and Hayley calling us both gross, I got it in my head to try Carol’s bird in the hand shot.  I thought it would be a good diversion from me asking John to stop blowing the blower up my robe and recreating a bad version of the Marilyn Monroe over the vent shot every time I walked outside.  Also, poor Vern and Fudge had just about enough of trying to avoid the leaf blowing and we all wanted it to be done.  Vern likes to be outside with John until he starts the leaf blower up and then sits frozen waiting for Hayley or me to open the door and rescue him.  Fudge wants nothing to do with it from the get go and is perfectly happy staying inside.

 

Well, you can only imagine the excitement when I told John and Hayley that I needed one of them to sit in a chair under the bird feeders with birdseed in their hands so I could snap a few pictures.  Hayley didn’t even take a minute to think it over before she said no and John said he didn’t believe it could work and it was a dumb idea.  Carol, stop reading now, because he said something bad about you for giving me this idea, but finally said he would do it. 

This left Hayley as the dog wrangler, another job she regrettably declined until I threatened her with eviction.  I have found, though, that sometimes when you force someone to help you they don’t always throw their whole heart and soul into the job and make mistakes.  Anyways, Hayley went inside and loaded her pockets up with treats to keep the dogs away from all the action and I explained to John what I wanted and went about waiting to take some show stopping photos.  I had to explain I was only interested in a hand shot, because by that time, John had dumped birdseed on the fly of his jeans and was making inappropriate comments about the early bird getting the worm. 

In the back of my mind, I was wishing a woodpecker would come along and teach him a valuable lesson, but I just smiled and told him to focus.

Nothing happened.  The birds did come and got very close to John, but didn’t attempt to eat from his hands, so I offered to switch places with him.  I had already set up the camera, but that didn’t stop John from fiddling with the camera and me yelling at him to leave it alone and just take the pictures.  John said my voice made all the birds fly away and I said “what about this one?” and raised my hand, which was not as easy as when I drive because I was holding birdseed.  By this time, Hayley had run out of treats and made the decision to just release the dogs and suffer the consequences.  Immediately, the dogs ran over to me and tried to eat the birdseed out of my hands and when I asked why she let them go, she just shrugged and said she didn’t feel like getting more treats. 

Taken by my stellar assistant

Well, suffice it to say, with dogs running amok and me voicing my displeasure; no bird was so hungry that he/she was willing to overlook the chaos.  I got zero shots of birds eating out of anyone’s hands and because John was fiddling with my camera when I showed him one bird connected to my hand, we have no proof of that either.  I did decide that Carol had the right idea about going solo and will attempt to make this work alone at a later date.  Carol, in the words of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz , and I can relate to her because I think she was competitive and had a bunch of monkeys for helpers, “I’ll get you, my little pretty.”

[F, Calla & Luca]

Hey Marilyn I love that image :-) I was wondering when you said that being snowed in made you a little crazy does that mean you were more sane than usual? BTW, Carol's photos are fantastic. I can't imagine how she manages it. But you can try, go girl :-) Loved the blog.