In 2007 it was estimated that around 75,000 of these birds were taken from the wild each year. Now, numbering less than 10,000 wild birds, the military macaw has reached another hurdle. Its habitat in the Amazon is being decimated by the soy plantations and a mere 5% of its Mexican range is protected.

This macaw was photographed in my studio in London, we set the studio up as you can see in the diagram. The satellite evolution is an incredibly textural light source, and it does amazing things with the bird’s feathers. The top light and ring flash helped lift the shadows, and we chose a complimentary tone for the background. I captured all of this on my Hasselblad H4D-60 in order to reproduce the bird’s incredible feather details and tones. The speed of the Broncolor Scoro packs is invaluable in these situations as it helps to freeze the bird in flight, the flash speed was around 1/10,000s at T0.1.

This particular Macaw was captivity bred, not taken directly from the wild.

more of Tim Flach

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