Photography

parsingphase.dev


Hi, I’m Richard, AKA parsingphase

I take photos as a hobby, and write code as a profession.

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Are you here because I gave you a card while birding?
You might be looking for my main collection at my Flickr account or my iNaturalist sightings.


I’ve been a casual photographer for most of my life, starting with a Disc Camera when I was about 10. I got my first DSLR in about 2005, and it was a background hobby for a few years until lighter devices improved enough to take over and the DSLRs sat on the shelf for a while.

Roll forward to 2020, a relocation to Massachusetts and COVID precautions resulting in spending a lot of time indoors, watching migratory warblers in the maple tree outside our apartment window. Incredibly, the 15-year-old hobbyist DSLRs (Canon 350D and 400D, aka Digital Rebel XT and XTi) and cheap 70-300mm zoom still worked perfectly and got some decent shots (at all of 8 megapixels).

Then, just as the hobby was taking off again, I blew out the USB port, and got to remember the retro “joys” of downloading from a Compact Flash card through a card reader. This was the tipping point to getting a new device - and wow, had they improved in 15 years. Shooting with a new Canon EOS 90D, first with a Sigma 100-400mm zoom and then a 150-600mm, handheld, was getting some real results and soon my wife (equipped with an EOS Digital Rebel T8i) and I were out shooting around once a week - and finding just how close to home wildlife can be found in Massachusetts.

This has proven to be more than just a hobby now - it’s fresh air, it’s family time, but it’s also a great collection of images and memories that are incredibly calming and satisfying to browse in a difficult year.

I’ve collected my favorites from this first year of wildlife photography at
photography.parsingphase.com. Many more images can be found on my Flickr account, where many of the wildlife images are available under a by-nc-nd license.

In addition to the images themselves, I’ve also given a talk on the topic and written up Some Notes on DSLR Wildlife Photography for new photographers which have proven popular.