Yesterday, late afternoon, I went to the beach to shoot more seascapes and surf abstracts. As I was setting up my tripod and getting ready to begin some shooting, this Snowy Egret approached me. I immediately took my camera off the tripod, adjusted some exposure settings to allow me to hand-hold the camera and slowly lowered myself down to a knee for a lower shooting angle.

Of course, I was disappointed that I had a wide angle lens on my camera instead of a telephoto. This would normally mean I wouldn't be able to get frame filling shots. I was afraid if I tried to change lenses, the bird would be spooked and would fly off. Boy was I wrong on all counts.

This bird just kept getting closer and closer. Before I knew it, he was practically in my lap. I slowly adjusted my position so I was lying in the wet sand (did I mention it was a little cold that evening).

He kept adjusting his position so he remained directly in front of me. Had I managed to put on a telephoto lens, I'd have been in trouble. A telephoto lens can't focus on a subject this close. I fired off about 30 frames before I needed to change my memory card.

Since he wasn't scared off as I rummaged through my camera bag for a fresh memory card, I went ahead and changed lenses. I thought I'd give my macro lens a try. A macro lens is designed to allow focusing at a very close distance. The trade off is a very shallow depth of field. In other words, only a very narrow plane of the scene or subject will be in sharp focus. The rest becomes soft and blurry. Knowing how this works allows for the creative use of a shallow depth of field.

I made it a point to shoot a variety of poses. Where the bird's head is parallel to the lens, the entire head appears in focus. When the bird was facing the lens, you can see I put the focus on the eyes and let the rest go soft. I was only a few inches from the bird in many shots.

After another 30 frames or so, the light was gone and the bird became bored with me. He slowly wandered off in search of small fish trapped in the shallow water.

This was one of those lucky encounters. It's not something you can ever plan. That said, to get lucky, one has to put themselves in positions for great things to happen and be prepared to react when they do.