Greetings from Ostrichland!
As a nature photographer, greeting card images are a major part of my business, but finding a card that catches the eye can be challenging. With tens of millions of options in the marketplace, your images need to be a unique subject matter, with vibrant colors. Also, quirky helps!
The more unusual, funny, and eye-catching the image, the better customers will want to purchase your card.
For my latest attempt at a quirky card, I worked with Ostrichland in Solvang, California. Located just off the highway north of Santa Barbara, they have 80 ostriches you can interact with, as well as emu, a smaller, slightly different ostrich-like creature.
Ostriches are the world’s largest bird and although they can’t fly, they make up for it with speed. They are the fastest runners of any bird, or for that matter, any other two-legged animal, sprinting over 40mph and covering as much as 15 feet in a single stride. Everything about these birds seems oversized, even their eggs, which are the largest of any bird on Earth at six inches long and weighing as much as two dozen chicken eggs.
Despite the marvel that these birds are, ideas are just ideas, so there is no guarantee that going to Ostrichland would yield a quirky and eye-catching card, but it only took a few minutes before I realized not only was this brilliant, but also some of the most fun I’ve ever had as a nature photographer!
Check out the latest episode to learn more about ostriches and emus, and join me inside the baby ostrich pen (hint: they are soooo cute and much more friendly than the adults), and see how my afternoon came together, revealing a new image and a postcard from Ostrichland in Solvang!
Photographing Ostriches in California 14 Photos
On the latest episode of Nature in Focus, Ian Shive visits Ostrichland to photograph the largest flightless birds in the world. Can Ian capture the perfect shot for his quirky postcard?
