Up until mid 2020, I was just focused into Ant Keeping and Ant Macro Photography, although I did the occasional travel photography, the wife portrait, and other genres but they were all very short lived projects.

Yellow Crazy Ant, Anoplolepis gracilipes

I always had this concern on the back of my mind, that I was limiting myself to a very specific thing, even if I enjoyed it tremendously. Normally, people will choose a genre and shoot everything inside it, but I was into Macro and inside Macro it was only ants… going through my photo library, 45% were ant photos, 50% travel and 5% others.

I think Sean Tucker’s recent video explains it better than I could ever do, what I was feeling about being stuck on a very limited genre.

How to Escape your Creative Ruts by Sean Tucker

So I started to wonder around in search of my creative self once again! And this whole site and name change is also for the same reason. I am no longer limiting myself to anything! The Wild Martin!

In August 2020, I bought a Creative Live Course, which I like to do every year, to try to learn new things and thinking I could get some insights from what to do next.

The Art of Wildlife Photography by Tom Mangelsen

And in this course (which I recommend you to see) Tom shares all the thought/planning/execution process behind of his most famous photographs, almost all using a long telephoto lens. Of course being so into nature, I also started to imagine myself travelling to distant places, taking similar photos, living in part my childhood dream, to always lose myself exploring the world. But I was missing a lens… and I knew they are very expensive.

Fate or coincidence, at a similar time, a very well-known local Bird Photographer had posted, on the local Facebook Equipment Sales group, his Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens for aprox 1000 usd. It was already a great price and very tempting. But I had just spent a huge amount on my new Canon R5, so I decided to first sell off everything I had that I wasn’t using.

It took me almost 3 months to be able to sell what I needed but I was still 200 usd short, when one day, I went to check if the lens was still available, and to my surprise, it still was an he had just dropped the price to 850 usd.

Needless to say, on that same night, the lens was sleeping comfortably in my house! The lens is in pristine condition, few scratches on the hood, and some wear on the body, but overall great condition for a great price.

I would recommend you go check his site as well, awesome photos of local bird species and a very friendly person.

JOÃO MONTEIRO - Birds of Macau

And so, I too, was now ready to take some bird photos and embrace new styles of photography and creative processes.

But before that I purchased another specific course just to make I got the basics down.

The Art of Photographing Birds by Frans Lanting

Although Photography physics principles and creative language are transversal across genres, for each one of them, there are different applications, and basic rules, and so I knew I was ready to start by … taking bad photos :D

And so I did ! My first very basic issue was, where to find birds… well not any birds, but cool looking birds!

Having spent so much time roaming the forests and trails, basically just looking down, searching for ants, knowing all the spots where the different species exist…. but birds, nope, it’s a whole new ball game.

Just the difference between having to walk looking up, and keeping an ear out to chirps, and birds, etc, in itself is a whole new experience. Habitats are different, activity periods are different, different behaviors, etc.. referring the two courses I did again, one of the most important lessons, is always to learn about your subject at hand. Know what they will do before they do it, is key to a great photograph.

I had to answer many times before “How did you take this photo of this ant when they move so fast?” and the answer is the same. If I know where they will be or what they will do ahead of them, then I can prepare myself for that moment.

But I digress! Birds! First photos! awful blurry mess! ahaahahah! But slowly but surely, I started to improve a little bit at each go at it.

Here some examples!

Another dove, really how many can you have?

Red-whiskered bulbul, Pycnonotus jocosus

Most of them heavily cropped (all hail R5 :D) but it is what it is.

And last week was my best experience of all so far.

I went down to a new (for me) bird spot, the Ecological trail in Avenida da Praia in Taipa. It was around 4pm when I got there.

As I was walking by, first thing I noticed was the number of female photographers! And in particular, there were two older chinese ladies, with cameras and long black lenses, both aiming at the same spot. I noticed this from the corner of my eye.

I didn’t want to be the guy that jumps in, and just starts to copy whatever they were doing.

So I focused my attention elsewhere on the main lake.

But suddenly I heard a splash, and I knew what it was. They were taking photos of a Kingfisher!

The sound and their shooting away their cameras, gave me the entry moment I needed to join them. While they were standing, I got closer to the edge and kneeled down too.

The Kingfisher, the common one, Alcedo atthis, was perched on a branch, below a small canopy of mangroves having a series of quick dives bursts.

I didn’t know how long it was going to stay there, and I knew (even if I had the equipment) I had no skills yet to try to get the bird entering the water, so I focused on the having at least one good photo of the bird on the branch.

After another dive, it moved to another location, a better one, where the sun was shining a bit more.

You have no idea how happy I was after this!

And best thing was, in the process I got to make another local bird photographer friend. She had only been doing bird photography for one year and already had awesome photos! And was kind enough to share with me some of her tips and birds places! Thank you Kell ! Hope to see you on the field !

So to wrap up the post, from now on, this is what I will be doing.

Anything and everything that makes me happy and stimulates me, will come on this blog and hopefully, you will enjoy reading and seeing the results of my progress on the different things I will be showing.

Thank you for reading! Leave me a comment and see you next post!

I started doing Bird Photography !

The Art of Wildlife Photography by Tom Mangelsen

JOÃO MONTEIRO - Birds of Macau

The Art of Photographing Birds by Frans Lanting