Creating a good photo

This photo was recently chosen to be one of the photos posted on Birds and Blooms website for the monthly photo challenge.  It is a good photo, but I would not consider it a great photo.  Lots of people take really good pictures of Goldfinches.  I believe this one was chosen for the setting.  Usually when one photographs birds in the backyard at your feeders, they do not look like they are in a natural setting.  I prefer to have my pictures of birds all be in natural settings, but that is not the way it usually happens.  


We have many different bird feeders in our yard, because we feed all different kinds of birds.  Our feeders are hanging from the  large black hooks.  Here are some of the things we have done to take better bird pictures. We have removed a screen from one of the windows that is by the bird feeders. We also have attached a dead branch to the top of the hook to give the birds a natural looking landing place before they continue on to the feeder.  Last year I purchased some artificial greenery and attached to the branch.  This picture of the goldfinch is taken on the top of the feeder sitting on the dead branch with the artificial greenery behind him.  I have used depth of field on my camera to blur the background.  One cannot tell that the greenery is artificial because of that. I am pretty sure that when people look at this picture they think the bird is sitting in a tree.  That is what I want them to think.

I hope this blog has been helpful for those of you that like to take pictures of backyard birds.