Beautiful Photography of Garden Birds: Bird Matters

Dionne Miles is an extraordinary photographer who focuses on finding the beauty in the common. She shares her experience, and methods for capturing amazing moments looking at light, composition and framing.

My name is Dionne Miles and my profession is actually in science, I was an academic scientist and then about a year ago went into freelance science writing, and at the same time developed my passion for photography. The way I got into it was about 10 years ago I moved from a flat in Rondesbosh
to a log cabin in the woods and I was surrounded by all these beautiful birds and I didn’t know what they were, so I got some bird books and ticked off their IDs and created lists and did everything amateur birders do and eventually I wanted to start capturing the beauty of these birds, but I soon found that my little point and shoot was not nearly accurate enough. But I couldn’t afford a proper DSLR camera. So I had to wait till 2011 before I bought my first one, and that’s when I started photographing birds.

I mainly photograph garden birds, or common water birds because I don’t travel to exotic places. But I find that there’s beauty in any bird, as long as you capture it in the right way. I have a particular fondness for the really little ones. I like the Swee Waxbills and the White-Eyes, they’re really cute and chirpy and I love photographing them, they’ve got such character. Most of the photos I’ve taken till now were taken with the Nikon D7100 which is a crop frame camera with a 300mm prime F4 lens. But just recently I upgraded to a D750 which is full frame and so because it’s full frame a 300mm wasn’t long enough, so now I’ve got a 200-500mm lens. The technique I use in my photography is following the basic rules of landscape photography. The main ingredient being light and composition, so things like the rule of thirds, never placing the bird in the middle, and finding a nice, uncluttered background. Making sure there’s no bright highlights or branches in the way, making the picture simple and all about the bird, but with a pleasing background. The main ingredient I use is light.

I like using light for mood, and I particularly love backlighting. I love the soft romantic mood that it creates, but as long as the light is soft, I like any kind of light.

The Black Heron picture is an example of the kind of light that I really like, it’s that light just before the sun goes down. And having mist of cloud creates a soft atmosphere. What happened with this picture, is the Heron was on the roof top, but I didn’t just want a boring picture of a Heron on a roof top, so I kept waiting for it to fly. I never interfere with the birds that I photograph, I just photograph them doing whatever they’re doing, so if it’s going to sit for hours I’ll wait for hours. Eventually two horses came running across the field and the Heron took off and I managed to snap it as it did.

The Cape Batis is an example of the type of photography anyone can do, it was taken in my garden with a 300mm lens. What I tried to create here through creative composition was a kind of forest fairy land feel.

The Cape Wagtail is a special picture to me, it was taken at this dam where we are now. The sun was getting very low, it was walking around the water picking insects and suddenly it moved into a spot of sunlight where the light was reflecting off the mountain and in that moment I took a shot on the fly and it moved back into the shade straight after that.

The Cape White-Eye is one of my favourite little birds. It’s quite difficult to photograph because they never sit still. So you have to shoot very quickly before it flies off. In this case, it was shot in soft light and used a shallow depth of field to blur the background and bring the bird out. I adjusted my position relative to the bird so there weren’t any branches dissecting the bird's head. When I first started bird photography I used to wonder around aimlessly shooting anything that moved, and at any time of day, in any kind of light. I soon wanted to start creating better compositions, so what I started to do, and what I suggest anyone starting out in bird photography do, is to rather find somewhere where you know it is a good composition and get to know the light conditions and get to know the birds that hang around there … and in this case it was a beautiful stand of pin cushions and it was always full of Sugarbirds and at first I was trying to get really close portrait shots and I was intent on getting ever closer. And soon realised if I stood back and looked at the scene, the entire scene was really beautiful, so I took the picture further back to include the whole environment.

The Hadida i a bird you either love or hate, I happen to love them. I wanted to get a picture showing the beautiful iridescent plumage which you can see when the light catches it. So in this case you can actually see the beautiful purple, green and brown iridescent feathers.

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