Murmuration

Posted on by jostephen
jo stephen nature photography
Oak tree & golden birds

I began this series of images in January, after visiting a starling murmuration at Blashford Lakes in Hampshire. It is created using multiple exposures, often combining ICM photography with static images. I started by combining images of the wetland habitat with images of the birds, but then the project expanded and I included textures, details from the environment and of course gold leaf.

Winter flight

The whole sereis can be viewed in a gallery in my photographic portfolio on this site, but I wanted to write a post and share a few of my favourite images from the project. And I hope that I may be lucky enough to witness a murmuration again this winter so that I can continue with what is becoming one of my favourite projects.

Fly away

This sereis combines so many of my favourite practices, photographing birds in flight, intentional camera movement photography, compositing multiple exposures (in Photoshop as my camera does not have the function to allow me to create these images “in-camera”) and the use of metalic elements to accentuate parts of the image.

jo stephen photography
Flight over water

When going out to watch and phogoraph any wildlife I will collect a scrapbook of images of the environment, both ICM and still of textures, plants, colours and movements caused by the wind or rain. I will shoot skies and grass and water and then combine these elements to create fantastical landscapes, but ones created from the elements I have found in a chosen location.

Birds and the sea

I have been fascinated by the flight patterns of birds since childhood and witnessing the group dynamics of large flocks in flight is one of the most wondrous spectacles I have been lucky enough to see and photograph. It is a spectacle that haunts my imagination and that I yearn to see again. The image below, of rooks in a tree in my road, I made as I watched these birds hopping and squabbling on the top most branches of a beech tree whilst in the back of my mind the starlings were massing, twisting and swooping. You can see them faintly, flying though the image. I dream that one day they may gather in the valley and that I might watch them every evening.

jo stephen photography
Rooks

This series is on-going and I am adding to the gallery often. If you like the images then please do pop back and take another look from time to time to view the latest images.

Thank you,

Jo x

go stephen photography murmuration starlings

19 thoughts on “Murmuration”

    1. Thanks so much, John, I think this is my favourite series of work and I’m so hoping the starlings might oblige me and gather in numbers locally this year too.

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  7. These are magnificent! I love the abstract view of natural elements and the dynamic of lines and shapes as nature is constantly in motion. If you get the chance, you would enjoy the dynamics of gulls and shorebirds as they fly in flocks that are similar to the starlings.

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    1. Thank you so much, Nancy. I dream of cisiting Norfolk and witnessing the waders and I’d love to photograph gannets. We get large flocks of gulls over the fields and the river on occasion, and I think there are some reasonably big flocks of sea birds at Brownsea lagon, though it’s closed to the public over winter, I really would love to see them.

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