I’m not even sure that these are herons – I’m not really that good on birds. My instinctive reaction was to think that they were cranes, but then I started to rethink. They’re in a friend’s garden. His house is situated right next to and slightly above a wetlands area. I was sitting with him one day when I noticed that at that time of day the sun was going down and highlighting the trees on the other side of the wetlands. This caused the statues to be silhouetted. I didn’t have a camera with me at the time, but not long afterwards I was back again – this time with my trusty camera.

I had a fairly clear idea of what I wanted: a bright background that I would throw out of focus with strongly silhouetted statues standing against it. However, when I came to edit the pictures I changed my view slightly. I didn’t like the statues being totally black and instead decided to try and lighten some of the details. I like the rather wild out of focus areas though.

My friend tells me that the two statues are actually fountains and are even connected to a water supply. He finds the water pouring out to be rather “cheesy” and so never turns it on.

The pictures were taken with a Sony Nex 5N and Minolta 50mm MD f1.4