Excerpt from "The Book of the Birds"

...when a yellow warbler lands three feet away, sometimes you have to just zoom out as quickly as possible to make sure you can get the whole bird in the shot. Notice, though, how the bird and the branch its on is the only thing in focus. That's because I was going for focus on a single bird and didn't care if I got anything else. This actually created a gorgeous effect, with the bird in crystal clarity and the background foliage making for a nice soft contrast. I wish I could say this was intentional and that I had the artistic vision to plan this out. The truth of the matter is much simpler: all I cared about was getting the photo of the bird and I didn't care at all what was in the background. It wasn't until looking at the image later that I realized how nicely it was framed with the combination of the bird, the branch and the softness of the green behind it....

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