Happy Accidents

" We don't make mistakes. We have happy accidents"

-Bob Ross

Disaster had struck.

My desktop was not reading many of my hard drives.

Nothing...nothing could be worse for a photographer.

However, I have been somewhat diligent in my habit of keeping back up images on my server. I say ‘somewhat’ deliberately. At least one trip’s images are hanging in the air as we speak.

It’s a nervy situation, for sure, but my tardiness is not what I wanted to speak about.

My first real international photo trip was to Brazil. My current crisis had resulted in me having all the original RAW images from that trip as I had backed them up. However, I was unable to access Lightroom ( which was in the erring drive ) on which I do my post processing, which simply meant that none of the processed images were available.

For the last few years, I have often toyed with the idea of going back and working on the Brazil images, but sheer lethargy always popped up its mean head. Right now, I really had no other option, and, while I dragged myself back with a groan, a lovely surprise was waiting for me.

The first place that we had visited in Brazil was this delightful little place called Trilha dos Tucanos ( doesn’t the name sound musical ? Just say it aloud…it rolls off the tongue so delightfully ! ).

Trilha dos Tucanos or the Trail of the Toucans, is a small, quaint birding lodge in a town about 3 hours drive from Sao Paulo in the dense Atlantic rainforest.

As we eased off the main road and went down the gentle slope leading to the main lodge, I noticed a board. It said there were 284 listed birds here.

284 !!

You could walk down small trails around the forest, walk past a lake, dancing streams, climb up small slopes and sit in small bird hides. And, wherever you go, you will see birds.

However, the bulk of the action was around the main building. Birds of all colours, shapes and sizes would descend there. You would imagine the Creator was in a particularly extravagant mood the day he/she made these birds, dipping the many brushes into an easel of exotic colours and gaily splashing them all around in joyful abandon.

Some of them will be wildly colourful, some will have beautifully nuanced shades, and a few will land with the most outrageous beaks that you can ever imagine.

Then there were the hummingbirds. Most of the birds here are rather unafraid of humans and I can tell you , that nothing can beat the experience of hearing a buzz near your ear and turning around to see a gorgeously colourful pint sized hummingbird hovering around you.

Let’s get to what got me so excited when I started reworking on the images.

I have developed a little bit as a photographer and the sort of images that I like to see today are different from what I thought all those years back. On top of it, the processing tech has also improved significantly. Images that were hugely noisy ( pixelated ) due to poor light can these days be addressed rather easily.

The result ? I found myself drooling with joy over many of the images that I had rejected back then.

Its just the head that is visible and the rest of the body is hidden ? Excellent !!

Oh, is there some blurry foreground obscuring the subject ? Just what I needed !

Ah, was it the noise in this image that made me reject it then ? No problem !

And, so on and on…some of the pics I liked are below. Which one did you like the most ?

It was quite a few happy afternoons I ended up spending !

Who would have thought that this could be a direct result of a terrible accident :)

Note to other photographers : Go back…go back to your old images once in a while !

Why on earth would I have rejected this image last time ???

The Violeceous Euphonia ( I think ) ...Violeceous sounds like one of those Asterix damsels

Drenched !! There was considerable noise in this image...easy peasy these days to address

I don't have the foggiest idea why I would have rejected this image last time !

The Saffron Toucanet bends to conquer...an image that I had selected last time too,

but since I love it, including it !!!

The Bananaquit can steal your heart....this one was there earlier too,

did a better job of the processing

The Violet capped Woodnymph ( I think ! ) caught in a frozen moment

I might have been unhappy with the blur on the wings ( serious eyeroll !! )

The Yellow fronted woodpecker...did I reject it last time due to those delightful

patterns in the background ??

The Golden Crested Woodpecker...I remember, thinking that this guy

reminded me of Trump which was rather cruel

The pic I am happiest about...I hadn't thought that I had got a half decent image of the red breasted toucan...but I could salvage this !!

Let me know what you think of these images !! And your fave one please !

Cheers !!

Ashok

---

Enjoyed this post ? Don't want to miss these ? Hop over to the Subscribe button and do the needful ! Also...do forward it to other friends who might enjoy it !