Fine Art Pelican Photography | Eden Wharf NSW

For a long time I have been trying to capture fine art images of the pelican. I have finally done it and I am over the moon. Here you can view three of my favorite pelican images from my recent visit to Eden in New South Wales. I have broken a couple of rules and decided to process these bird photos in both colour and black and white. Why? Because I can and I like the results. I am noticing more and more that the photography community has a lot of self imposed rules. I plan to be true to myself as an artist and do what is right for the image. In this case I like these photographs done both ways.

Eden Wharf: Great For Pelican Photography

Pelicans at Eden Wharf

Becoming an artist has made me look at the world with new eyes. I grew up in Eden and the memories of my youth are mostly of beautiful beaches and the local wharf. I first developed a true appreciation for the area when I became a tour guide in 2001. My parents had a recreational charter boat business and I worked for them as a deckhand and tour guide. I had to learn about the whaling history that the town is famous for and a lot of other local information. During this time is when I fell in love with learning and educating people. I also fell in love with just how beautiful the area is. I have traveled to over 25 countries and I am yet to find a coastline like the one on the Australian south east coast. The one thing I did not appreciate until now is what a great place Eden Wharf is for photography. Especially for photographing the local pelicans.

I was able to get up quite close to the pelicans, sometimes within 10 metres. If any of you read my recent post ‘Bird Photos: Keeping The Noise To A Minimum‘ you will be aware of the issues I was having with my telephoto lens. I have found since that posting that article the detail retained in the photographs is now higher and the noise level lower. This happens when my focal length stays between 100mm and 200mm. I think you will all agree that these images are better quality.

The rocks the pelicans congregate on are both rugged and beautiful. If you get down low enough you can cut the boats and other distractions of the frame out. I highly recommend going down on a dark and stormy day for a more dramatic result. If you are after something softer and bright I would head down early in the morning.

I have a photograph in my gallery called ‘Pelicans At Eden Wharf‘. It is a good example of what you can get when you include the boats and bay in the background.

I Plan To Return To The Area Before Christimas

I plan to go back down there sometime around Christmas 2016 and capture the pelicans from the other side of the rocks. I have found the pelicans tend to fly towards that direction more often. They are flying into the wind and look great. Unfortunately I didn’t have as much time down there as I would have liked and failed to capture them from this angle.

If you plan on photographing them from this side I suggest doing it closer to sunset. This will have the late afternoon light on their faces. I can image the photo already. I am so excited to get back there. I will post the new images before the end of the year.

Editing The Pelican Images

At this stage I only have Adobe Lightroom and all of the photos were processed using this software. You will notice the colour of the sky is different in the images. The blue saturation and luminance sliders were adjusted to create the different affects you see between each picture. The only other edits were basic shadows, clarity, and highlight adjustments. These enhancements really brought the images to life and made them pop.

It is important to note that I did not add any blue saturation. The deep blue in ‘The Pelicans’ comes from decreasing the blue luminance level.

I also applied a brush to the pelicans and the rocks. Then I added between 500 and 800 Kelvin to warm them up a bit. Some clarity was added to the brushed sections. No brushes were applied to the sky in the images. I did use graduated filters in some corners and radial filters over the body of the pelicans.