Chuck had that sad, puppy dog big eye look when he answered my question what’s wrong. “I still have issues with wide,” he said. We had just got onto Bandon Beach, a favorite locale that has a different face every time you walk it. I stopped right then, grabbed Chuck and walked over to the scene you see above. Now just standing there, it wasn’t obvious there was a photo to be made. But once I pointed his D810 / 18-35AFS down, got close physically to the rock and zoomed out to 18mm and said to Chuck, “Get close, shoot across the top, shoot wide” and had him look through the viewfinder, he said, “Ahhhhhhh.” We talked a little further and off he went down the beach with a smile in his hop.
I went back to exploring the beach with the D750 / 14-24AFS when after a while, I looked up to see Chuck bouncing from rock to rock to rock to rock across the beach, shooting the same thing we just had done, just with different rocks. I caught up to him and said, “What in the hell are you doin?” He said, “Looking for wide shots like we just did!” I then pointed at this God given gift of a scene you see above and screamed, “That’s a wide shot too!” To which he said, “You tell me things and I instantly get in a rut.” To which I said, “You know what a rut is, it’s a grave with its ends knocked out.” Chuck looked puzzling at me.
Chuck and I had a marvelous week talking about wides and ultra wides as we explored the CA / OR coast. It started with explaining what I mean by the dance and ending with the above exchange. The Dance is where you exclude all those elements that take the eye away from the subject while including those that tell the story. We also talked about White and Bright, finishing and a whole lot more. And by the end of the week, we finished off with the most important lesson. Because after the two photographic examples above, the skies opened up and the beauty was just about too grand for a pixel to hold. It’s then I told Chuck the most important elements when working with wides and landscapes. I said, “and after all of that, you have to insert your heart!” He smiled the smile of knowledge, shook his head and said with that great smile of his, he got it! Great week, thanks Chuck!
Had a marvelous day with some really nice folks going back to my landscape roots. The first place I really tried to apply myself as a landscape photographer were the Coastal Redwoods of No. Cali. I painfully remember throwing roll after roll after roll of film away after trying to shoot the huge range of light of the redwoods with film and its three stops. Oh, the pain! Today, it is Soooooo bloody easy to do it, it makes wondering amongst these giants a sheer delight. Been a long day so just wanted to get up a favorite click from this afternoon to share the view. Shot with the D750 (In Flat) with the 14-24AFS lens and in this case, @f/22 and pinched the light to get the starburst. Flat gives us so much range we can get shadow and highlight detail in one click. The redwoods are so majestic, just good for the soul to shoot and only think and photograph the trees from the forest.
Ospreys or what used to be called the Fish Hawk are just downright bloody cool! In the late 70’s I became good friends with Roger Tory Peterson who infected me with his love for these birds and it’s never stopped. When I started out in wildlife photography, they were just making a comeback, hard hit by pesticides.They are quite the characters when they are on the wing except when going after prey. Then it’s all business and when it comes to aerial aerobatics, it’s some of the finest flying you’ll ever see. Well, how do you tell that story in a still image? I’m still working on that and this past week at Ding Darling, I worked on it some more.
It was late afternoon at Ding Darling, the sun already making a dash for the horizon. Chuck and I were busy spinning in circles as there was so much activity, hard to know which way to point the lens. I love bird photography like that! It was during this time this Osprey started to tease us. You know what I’m talking about, with the wind and sun on your back, perfect conditions, they start in your direction. They keep coming and just as you’re ready to hit the shutter release, they turn and go the other direction. Chuck and I were both there with our D4s / 800mm w/TC-1.25e all primed as the Osprey went away and then turned back. Finally he made a couple of clockwise circles nearly overhead and then at the right moment photographically, it made a break in the circle and dove. You see the series of shots above. And the one single image is my favorite, it’s what I’m after. It might be just a tad too close to the corner, but I like the energy this totally unconventional composition has and what it says about the artistry of the air when the Osprey dives.
I was talking landscape photography with folks a week ago and a very good question came up. “What elements do I look for in a landscape?” I took this question to mean in part, do I have a mental check list of what I’m looking for in a scene to make me stop and make a photo? I do but it’s not a list that has any particular order. We will pass past a scene and Sharon will often say, “That’s gorgeous” which it is. “You wanna stop and take a pic” she will often ask. And at times, I will say, “Nope, no light.” Then in answering the question, light is what makes me stop to explore a landscape but it alone is not enough to make me go click. I’m using this photo taken this last week at Ding Darling with the Nikon 1 V3 to kinda illustrate my thought process (love this camera for landscapes!).
There is no doubt the God Beams is what took my attention away from the Roseatte Spoonbills. And it helped in making my mind up where to stand, but lens selection, exposure and finishing were decided on other elements. For even in a landscape, I feel storytelling must happen and passion flow. With that in mind, the flock of birds in silhouette needed to be included for time and place. The grander of that sky requires visual depth which requires a foreground, middleground and background. Placing the God Beams in the frame to take advantage of the vanishing point they create (reality and reflection) is part of it. Then there is the color that is created in part by using Cloudy WB and underexposure. After the light, which element I incorporated next, and then the next and then the next I really don’t know. So I guess in answering the question, I know where I start but after that, the elements need to fall in place and the camera craft lines them all up. Oh ya, there is one last element I forgot to mention and perhaps it is the one that comes first come to think of it. Love for what’s being experienced.
Speaking of pelicans … there are the Brown Pelicans in Florida. Not sure what it is about the Brown Pelican, I just gravitate towards them whenever they are within range of my lens. They are so prehistoric lookin, have a helluva bite but I know first hand they have a big heart. And when it comes to flight, they are masters of the air riding currents we can’t even feel. So photographing them in flight always fascinates me and as you’ve seen, photographing them floating on the crest of a wave is one way I love to tell the story of their flight. Then there is the another ….
When pelicans decide they are going to land, there is a moment as they change their flight that another aspect of their ability is displayed. The thing is, in order to land they need to dump air from their wings so they can land. In doing so, they twist and torque in all sorts of ways depending on how fast they want to land on a particular spot. And in photographing this folly, you have to pan in a vertical rather then the typical horizontal style. This is where the challenge comes.
While at Ding Darling, had a couple of opportunities to work on my vertical panning as the pelicans flew in. Shooting with the D4s / 800mm w/TC-1.25e, one “trick” I find helpful is picking up the subject long before it’s even in range for a the photo. The reason is to get an idea of how the pelican is flying in. You will see them start to turn their body, lower their feet and twist their primaries. With this, the panning is on a vertical movement and this is done easier when the tripod is high so you don’t have to bend your back. This makes the pan downwards smoother and that helps in getting the sharp image. The last thing is to let the shutter fly! It takes a number of passes to make the shots, but I love the challenge and those successful images. And when telling the story of the Brown Pelican flight, the vertical panning shot works.
