Behind the image: Liberty the Bald Eagle
(2023 - Charleston, S.C.)
I think this is probably one of the best photos I’ve taken. It’s certainly the most striking in my opinion.
Most of the time when you see photos of bald eagles, there’s a noble and almost threatening vibe in the face of the birds. I don’t think Liberty was any different but the situation my girlfriend and I found her in was slightly different.
On the second floor of the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston, Liberty was behind a mesh line of cage. Originally found in Florida, Liberty was injured at a young age and had part of her left wing amputated. As a result, she mainly stays in her cage and oversees the aquarium and all who enter from a few perches that she hops back and forth from. She’ll spread her wings as she hops but early on in her rehabilitation from her injury, it was evident that she would never fully fly again. So she lives in the South Carolina Aquarium and probably will for the rest of her life. I took approximately 18 frames when we saw her.
It was early in 2023 and the beaches of Charleston were impressively cold. Never having been on an East Coast beach before in my adult life, I was shocked to say the least. I took a lot of photos in Charleston and they’re still some of my favorites. Of all the shots of Liberty, this one was the most striking.
The classic profile of an eagle, the way her yellow beak and white feathers stand out from the black background, her brownish yellow eyes peering into the distance. It’s not an Alex Webb photograph where the chaos of the image is perfectly captured and presented in brilliant color nor is it like the perfectly voyeuristic photos of Vivian Maier’s street photography. It’s a picture of a really impressive bird. I shot it on my Sony a6400 at 300mm focal length.
I don’t know if I could take a better photo of this bird in particular but every time I look at it, I’m amazed at Liberty and I find myself feeling fortunate that an aquarium had such a creature and that she was looking so photogenic that day. This is how I took this image.
