Over the last two and a half months I’ve been a bit more regular about the backyard birds.
Not a new project exactly. Same house, same trees, same regular visitors. The difference is the loop. Click, sit with the file for a bit, postprocess it, and put it up, mostly as Instagram stories. That’s it.
I already wrote about the last six years here. That post was a collection. This one is more about what changed when I stopped treating the photos as something I only keep.
The loop
For a long time the photos just sat on disk. I’d click when something showed up, maybe process a few later, and then forget about them.
The last two and a half months have been simpler:
- notice whatever is actually there
- take the shot when I can (camera when I can, phone when I can’t)
- process something the same evening or the next day, a new frame or an older one I never finished
- post it
I try to click a few pictures most days, but I don’t always manage it. Some days are just too busy, and I don’t want to force it. The point is to keep the loop going, not to make it a chore. On those days I pull up older files I haven’t processed and work on those instead. That helped me understand the birds better, and it finally got me into the backlog I’d been putting off for a long time.
I’ve reduced how much I rely on RawTherapee and GIMP. These days I lean more on Lightroom (mobile and web) and RapidRAW, which I’ve been finding a bit easier, though that opinion may change. Nothing fancy. The point was not to get better at software. The point was to finish the loop.
Stories helped with that. A story is small. It doesn’t need to be a perfect frame. It just needs to go out.
What it actually changed
The regular loop has helped more than I expected.
I look out of the window with a bit more patience now. I recognise the same birds faster. I notice when the light is actually usable, and when it isn’t. I waste less time waiting for a “better” bird that isn’t coming.
Sitting with a file regularly, even for ten minutes, and even when it’s an older one, made the files less precious. If a frame is only okay, I still work it and send it. That sounds small. It isn’t. Most of my backlog existed because I was waiting to do it “properly”.
Posting helped in a quieter way. Once something is up, the day has a small finished thing in it. I didn’t realise how much I needed that.
Same birds, slightly different eyes
The cast hasn’t changed much. Coppersmith barbet still does the tuk-tuk-tuk from the same branches. The magpie robin still sings like it owns the place. Sparrows, mynas, white-eyes, munias, all still around.
What changed is how often I actually see them instead of walking past.
Six years of clicking taught me the birds were there. Two and a half months of processing and posting taught me to keep looking.
Still low pressure
This is still not a travel project. No parks, no hides, no new lens as a prerequisite.
If you already have a small patch of green, a few trees, or even just a window that gets visitors, the useful part is the loop. Click when you can. Process something, new or old. Put it somewhere, even if it’s only a story that disappears.
More photos are on 500px and Instagram.
Thanks for reading.