Our August meeting was well attended, and we were in for a treat. Riki Reichman took us birding (captured mostly in Florida). She started her presentation with a well-organized, candid discussion with Photographers East about her personal path as a bird photographer. She spoke about what led her to this niche in photography, how she developed her craft, what gear she uses, and how she thinks about photographing birds. There was considerable interaction with the group and Riki obviously loves her craft.

Following her remarks, she presented a slide show of her images.

For the third portion of her presentation, after her slide show Riki gave the group a live demonstration of her image workflow in Photoshop for several of the images we had seen in the slideshow. She demonstrated a technique, selectively separating her birds from complex or distracting backgrounds, which she feels enhances the experience of her images.

Riki demonstrated various different methods she uses to isolate birds and branches, several ways to make refinements to the edge of the selection to improve the appearance of the edge of the birds for a more natural impression, non-destructive editing techniques, and different methods to create background blur.

Thank you Riki !! You can see more photos here:  Riki Reichman Photography: Nature As Art