Brewer’s Blackbird Euphagus cyanocephalus, Salt Lake City, Utah
I wasn’t targeting Brewer’s Blackbirds when I made this image, but it quickly became a favorite because of that stare. Something about the pale iris of the male Brewer’s Blackbird that just makes their gaze intense. What really makes this image sing, what makes the isolation of that gaze possible is the perspective. Bird’s eye level perspective; no room for a tripod, camera and lens resting on the ground. Besides the obvious engagement with the bird, this perspective allows the plane of focus to be perpendicular to the ground, which means the background is distant and rendered extremely soft with a wide aperture.
