Birds on White (high-key photographs) are a whole thing that I love playing with. An overcast day gives the perfect opportunity to get some nice flight-shots with a blown-out background, isolating your subject in a glorious field of negative space.

But why settle got one nice flight shot when you have a whole series? I’m primarily a documentary style photographer – I don’t play with my images much once I’ve shot them beyond sharpening, and a bit of selective burning and dodging to draw the eyes in the right direction. I’d rather be out shooting than sitting on my laptop. Still stuck in a L3 lockdown in Tāmaki Makaurau though, I’ve been on the computer a lot and decided to experiment with compositing a series of flight shots. Straying the line between wildlife photography as documentary and art. Unlike my seabird at night shots, this is a series of images rather than a single long exposure with multiple manual flashes.

Tūī have been a great subject recently in their spring-fever, and I captured this first sequence of a bird mid-hawking flight, chasing after tiny airborne insects. I love the shapes, the light through the wings, the touch of iridescence. It clearly resonated with others as well – within a few hours of posting it on Twitter I had a print order for this image!

Bigger is better? Maybe. I’m not 100% happy with this kākā composite yet, but I love having the full flightpath of a bird, from approach to departure. I’ll definitely be playing with this technique a bit more, stretching the creative muscles! It’s tricky trying to get the shots to approximate the fight curve that I saw while photographing, lining up all the images nicely. When it all falls into place though, there’s a lovely natural shape to it. There’s some really neat work by Xavi Bou and other photographers who use high-speed video to get a similar effect, which is something I’d love to try. Maybe some at-sea sequences next? Let me know what you think!