Friday's First Shoot

February 12, 2016

My adopted African Grey, Friday, had her first "real" photo shoot (photos other than snapshots with the cell phone) after being with me just over three weeks.

She came to the sanctuary I adopted her from missing most of her feathers, down to fuzz, except for her head. Since I got her, they're already showing rapid growth, and I wanted to start documenting her progress with photos capable of showing the feather detail, and also make sure I keep memories of how she looks along the way to being fully feathered again.

As new and still scared of some actions and activities around her as she is, I wasn't sure if flashes would distress her, so I added an extra bulb to the lamp that sits on one side of her cage, used the brightest modeling light of any of my strobes on the other side, and also turned the room's overhead light on. The shots are still high-ISO and wide apertures, but came out very clean.

Friday was really calm through the entire photo shoot process, and sat on her perch with her cage door open for about an hour, going through all of her cute postures, head movements, wing stretches, foot-scratches, and preens. I think she liked the sound of the shutter click, and next time I'll also turn back on the auto-focus indicator beep.

I shot about 500 images of her this first time, and these are just a very few of my favorites. I aim to try for a few photos once a week or so to show the progress of her feather growth.