My wife and I transformed our backyard about 18 months ago by having it landscaped as a personal refuge and habitate for local critters and wildlife. After discovering nature photography about five years ago, I'd never worked a backyard with any regularity. My hope with our new backyard design was to produce stunning, easy to get to photographs that a viewer would think were taken after long and hard hours out in the field. I wanted to have a kind of an oasis where I could work after or before my normal day job. I wanted a visual paradise right out my backyard.

To make this happen, I consulted various friends and family members as to the methods and pitfalls to build such a habitat only to discover that none had really done what I had in mind. I was on my own and tracking new ground. Undetered, I set off to build my wild backyard.

First thing was to come up with a plan. The idea was to create something that would be enjoyable for the owners/humans--namely me and my wife--be ecologically sound with minimal water usage, and still be a haven for local wild creatures. We installed some grass but not much--mostly a concession to those times when we entertained in the backyard--and planted dozens and dozens of plant beds to attract our critters. Mostly our plants were of the low impact water frugal variety. I personally wanted more indigenous types but conceeded to more colorful plants that would make the backyard that much more special. At the beginning, I really had no idea what I would end up attracting. I just didn't know.

Backyard growing is not for the impatient. Not only is it a tremendous time consuming effort to make-up the backyard, you also have to wait for the plants to really grow into their own--no pun intended. In the end I realized making a backyard friendly to critters and humans alike is really an act of faith. You never really know what you're going to get until you get it.

To my surprise, the first fall after the spring planting I was rewarded with an influx of migrating humming birds. Some were quite aggressive, staking out their terratories chasing away all potential intruders. Funny enough, one particuarly aggresive little guy would fly up to me within inches of my nose hoping, I guess, to scare me off "his" backyard. I was amused. After hours in "his" backyard, I had made hundreds and hundreds of images him perched on great spots, flying among the bakyards plants, and in all kinds of light. I felt previledged to have such availability of great imagery.

The image I have here was the result of a fairly rare overcast day in the Mojave Desert. Our friendly bird would perch at this particular location, fly off to scare something off, then immediately return. His behavior made my efforts as a photographer easy. I simply had to frame on his favorite perch, take appropriate exposure readings, make test shots with my flash, and wait for the subject to arrive. And arrive he did. I took what seemed like dozens and dozens of shots of him looking this way, looking that way, preening, yawning, anything you can imagine.

The attributes of a sharp as a tack image, super background, butter like light, and fantastic subject makes this image for me. Adding all the work with building a wild thing friendly backyard, may make the effor to produce this image as a tremendous effort. On the other hand, subtract away the landscape work, this image was a piece of cake to make, almost too easy. I only had to go in the backyard and shoot away. How easy can that get?

If you're sitting on the fence as to whether it's worth the effort to redesign your backyard as a haven for photographic potential let me tell you the hardwork will eventually pay off as you can see here.

Cheers

Tom Hill