For those of you who have been following my Birds & Teacups series, you must know my process by now:

antique teacup ✔

matching bouquet  ✔

combine above and wait for a bird (or two) to fly in and pose while I shoot with dramatic lighting  ✘

combine above and shoot with dramatic lighting  ✔

take pictures of local birds  ✔

add birds (in a naturalistic way) into the still life using photoshop  ✔

paint the heck out it   ✔  ✔  ✔

But yesterday was something new…a scrub jay was busy caching acorns about my yard and I thought it would be a great opportunity to get a shot of the bird with the actual teacup I had planned on pairing it with. Usually I try to scale the bird to the teacup with the measurements listed on birding sites but this was going to give me a real life comparison, if only I could get them in the same shot! I filled the teacup with birdseed and acorns and retreated to my studio stoop with my telephoto lens on my camera. I had only a few minutes to wait before there was some interest…

…of course the jay wasn’t the only one who likes a tea party !