Photographers' secrets: How I got that great shot

Puget Sound has caught the shutter bug. Times readers tell us photography is among their favorite hobbies. To feed the ambitions of everybody who got a new digital camera for their latest birthday, we went on a little photo safari with Times photographer Alan Berner. And we picked out some favorite Northwest Weekend photos from recent months and asked photographers how they got the picture.

Times photographer Alan Berner was showing me some tricks of his trade, which is why I had an umbrella stuffed down my shirt.

Brrr. The handle was cold.

We were dodging raindrops as we crossed a rough-planked pedestrian bridge over railroad tracks in wooded Kiwanis Ravine, near Seattle's Discovery Park. We hoped to get some great photos of the resident heron colony there.

The umbrella idea was Berner's. He always carries some straight-handled umbrellas that he can jam down into a jacket or other clothing to provide shelter from the rain while leaving hands free for his camera.

It's the kind of tip that makes sense for photographers in the rainy Northwest. And that's not the only specialized equipment he carries in his four-wheel-drive Honda CR-V.

"I always carry extra rain gear, and leather boots, rubber boots, low-cut waterproof boots, half a dozen hats," Berner said — so he can even loan extra gear to the occasional wet writer accompanying him.

A gray-ponytailed St. Louis native who has worked 24 years at The Seattle Times, Berner doesn't make bird photography his main gig. But he's found a liking for it.

"I'm a street photographer, with one camera. But I shot a story about western grebes on Vashon Island, and I said, 'What a kick!' " he recounted. "I like to shoot with a really long lens, so you can see the bird's eye, so you can see the bird's personality."

Patience is part of the process. "It sounds kind of boring, but in general you stand there for hours," he said. The payoff can be a photo that gets you so close to a wild bird that you can count the feathers.

His lens of choice for bird photos is a 500 millimeter, with a 1.4 teleconverter, giving the equivalent of a 700 millimeter lens. Other than a long lens, what's the next recommendation?

"A good tripod is one of the best investments you can make — it's a couple hundred dollars and it will last a lifetime."

In Kiwanis Ravine, we saw a group of clumpy nests in some distant maple trees, but no herons on the nests. Instead, a half dozen herons had taken up a perch atop a high roof on a nearby house.

"Oh, my, there's one with a twig in its mouth," Berner cooed as his camera shutter clicked. "Urban herons, that's what we have here! They must like that view from up there!"

As he swiveled his camera across the mop-gray sky, he showed off two more tools of a Northwest photog's trade: fingerless wool gloves to keep his hands warm on a cool spring day while maintaining dexterity, and a handy chamois cloth to wipe raindrops off his lens.

Wipe, click. Wipe, click. Wipe, click.

Brian J. Cantwell: 206-748-5724 or bcantwell@seattletimes.com