Bird Photography

I just picked up a print of the top image from the printer. The title (which appears as part of the piece) is White-breasted Nuthatch / Attempt 3 of 7. I am donating it to CEPA's (a venerable Buffalo non-profit photography gallery), bi-annual fundraising auction. It measures 14.5x20" this is the first actual print made from a project that I have been working on for years. Here is the statement I am currently using for the project, I am not entirely comfortable with it but it describes the main idea.

The Bird Photography (Attempts) series began five years ago when I noticed a high number of failed photographs of birds among the casual snap shots I had taken as a teenager. The impulse to capture the natural encounter had overridden the knowledge that the bird would most likely appear only as a speck in the frame of the photograph. I decided to continue this accidental project and start photographing birds without a telephoto lens or any other specialist equipment. The series has become both an attempt to document the fleeting quality of wildlife encounters and an exploration of the persistent desire (in myself and others) to take possession of animals through documentation and species identification.

I have some of the images here, but I need to overhaul that page soon and reorganize the project.