Michael Wilkins
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A bird of prey crosses a blown-out white sky, small in the frame, dark wings spread mid-beat.

Small Dark Wings

Pumba Game Reserve, Eastern Cape, South Africa · December 2022

1D X Mark II, 400 millimetres, f 5.6, 1/500 of a second, ISO 320

Mostly sky, on purpose.

A raptor crossed the white of an overcast sky and I resisted the urge to crop it large. Small in the frame is how you actually see a bird like this — a dark signature moving across nothing. The exposure burnt the cloud away entirely. What is left is the shape of flight, and room for it.