On a calm Good Friday afternoon in early April, the wild swans (Cygnus cygnus) had returned to Lake Jyväsjärvi. They find shelter in the reedbeds along the eastern shore and forage along the bottom of the shallow waters in the little bays, always together as a pair in this season. Swans mate for life.
Making of:
I spotted them while cycling along the Rantaraitta trail around the lake. In the melted part of the otherwise still frozen lake, they were dipping beneath the water in search of food. I took the landscape photograph from the birdwatching hut, while the swans were in another bay of the half-thawed lake, roughly in the upper-left part of the image. The swan photo was taken with a Sony RX10 M4 camera at a fast shutter speed of 1/1000 s, since the sunlight made it challenging not to overexpose their white plumage. My aim was to capture both the atmosphere of the melting lake and the two swans as a couple from different distances and perspectives.
Michael Emmerich 