Tourmaline Sunangel and petunias


Posted by Juan E. Bahamon on Sun Apr 08, 2018 4:43 pm

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Tourmaline Sunangel and Petunias.

While traveling in Ecuador, I have visited many times the birding lodge of Guango located at the west downslope of the Andes on the road to Baeza. The Tourmaline Sunangel is very common there, and it has fascinated me because of that colorful gorget that the male has in an otherwise dark plain body.

Many times I have tried to photograph this hummingbird without success until I bought an expensive Canon camera with a high dynamic range and learned enough photoshop skills to adjust the images, so not burn the gorget and have enough detail on the black feathers.

After the fifth trip, I have enough pictures of them, but I did not like the composition. One night while on the night owl flight back to the States, I could not sleep and I began to think, Isn't a garden plant that has the same color of the tourmaline gorget? What is the name? Not having internet, Those ruminating thoughts tortured me the whole 5 hour trip to Houston.

As soon I passed immigration and had a carrier signal I googled and indeed is the Petunia! Man, if I can found petunias of that color in a nursery in Quito, I then will spike the corollas with concentrated nectar to lures these guys. A green background would serve as a complementary color.

Yes Sir, the next year I got my petunias, precisely the Tourmaline hue that I wanted, when I arrived at Guango, like a maniac I sat my photographic paraphernalia, and I took so many pictures until I was satisfied with the compositions.

The caretakers of the lodge might have thought; what an eccentric doctor that goes to all these extremes for a simple picture.

Canon 5D Mark III 100-400 L Lens II 5 Einsteins at 1/32 of power
Juan E. Bahamon
www.birdsofcorpuschristi.com
www.juanbahamonhummingbirds.com

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by Axel Hildebrandt on Sun Apr 08, 2018 4:50 pm
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Cool POV and iridescence!
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by Ron Day on Sun Apr 08, 2018 6:41 pm
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A beautiful image, Juan. Great job matching the color with Petunias. All the technicals are right on the money. Love the flash work, particularly the rim light on the Petunias. Wonderful execution of this image, Juan. Great story as well.
 

by mlgray12 on Sun Apr 08, 2018 7:37 pm
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Juan - great shot - I really like Guango Lodge and need to get back - lots of really neat birds there - Love the colors but I am a native plant - so I really hate using non-native plants for photography - We will destroy the plant if we keep using non-native plants that support almost nothing when they are in wrong place
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by Mako_Elite on Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:48 pm
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Wow, what an amazing shot. It is not easy to get shot like this. Great job with dialing in all the settings, BG and all 5 flashes. Shot is amazing...hats off.

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by Karl Egressy on Mon Apr 09, 2018 6:29 am
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Sweet shot, love it!!!.
 

by Carol Clarke on Tue Apr 10, 2018 3:55 pm
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Perfect complementary colour! Beautiful image.

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