May 28, 2014 | Wildlife Photography
The Great Blue Heron, there are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of wildlife photographers who owe they start in wildlife photography to this bird! Big, good lookin and for the most part, very cooperative, they are one of the first subjects wildlife photographers find and shoot and shoot. So to say there are lots of common photos of the GBH might be putting it lightly. Well, if you want to move your photography forward, you’re looking for the uncommon. You can start by putting your GBH in front of a clean background like you see here, I nice clean blue with a touch of green is a great start. It tells about the world in which it lives, makes it visually pop and compliments its color. But this is just a step into making the uncommon from the common.
That’s when a little biology can really make a difference. You can see here the two photos and make the call which is more interesting, I’m betting it’s the bottom photo. One thing about GBH is they don’t do a lot of “biologically” interesting stuff other than feed, crap and fly. But after they eat, if the prey they munched it largish, they have to work it down their crop. It’s this process that they pop open their bill to work down the prey. In this case, it was stuck pretty good so the GBH popped his bill looking left and then looking right. Now why does this make the common, uncommon? Well, GBH tend to not eat items that cause this problem. At the same time, having the light, background and biology come together at the same time cuts down the odds as well. So getting the shot requires knowing that this is possible, have your finger on the button and willing to rip when the action happens. Just another technique to put in your arsenal aiming at the viewer’s heartstrings!
May 27, 2014 | Wildlife Photography
There is only one rule in wildlife photography. The eye has to be sharp. To repeat that, the only thing that has to be sharp is the eye. This can be a great constraint as well as a liberator in our wildlife photography. It gives us permission to bring to life to our stills, evoke emotion from motion. Building on gettin down, we take this thought further when presented with the right opportunity. We start this then by lying on the sand and getting down with the birds.
Still using the same set up, D4s / 800mm mounted to the Panning Plate. Photographing this foraging White Ibis on this particular shoreline, care had to be used when placing the rig down so not to be lower than the water’s edge or you’d have a heck of a time keeping the rig steady (besides getting wet). The next thing is to think about what’s unique about this opportunity taking the common and making it uncommon? The majority of White Ibis photos you see besides being taken at eyelevel is that the ibis are in still, blue water.
Ibis feeding at the water’s edge is unique. But if we freeze the waves with a fast shutter speed, then you’re right back at that still blue water. The common reaction to shooting before the sun comes up these days is, “raise the ISO, get a fast shutter speed.” In this case, I continued to shoot my usual ISO100 working at 1/60. Between shooting with a long lens, having it resting in the sand and shooting at a slow shutter speed, this is a low percentage shoot. That’s to say, best shoot a ton of images if you hope to get that one that works. But then again, it just takes one. The waves because they are moving are blurred and there is no doubt they are waves. This brings emotion through motion. The peaking sun and D4s killer exposure and color does the rest. This permits us to move our photography forward and is a great example of applying the Maisel factor to wildlife photography, color, light, gesture!
May 27, 2014 | Wildlife Photography
Taking the common in an uncommon way while bringing in the art and craft of photography is a simple way of grabbing the viewer’s attention. I’m down in Florida having the time of my life photographing birds on the beach. As I remind folks all the time when working with birds, it just takes one to make your morning. When you have over twenty five species and you’ve cached over 5k images in two mornings, well we can safely say you’ve found the one. But once accomplished, how do you get the viewer involved with your one and feeling the same exhilaration as you? There are lots and lots and lots of ways of doing this. I’m going to explore a number of methods we can use to make the uncommon out of the common this week. Now, it’s gettin down with birds.
What we have here is the Black-bellied Plover, a rather largish shorebird that is normally in the Arctic this time of year making babies. This individual is in his breeding plumage which makes him a hot target in my book. In the winter, you don’t see the white or black. The top photo was taken with the D4s / 800mm on top of the Gitzo 5561SGT w/ Wimberley Head so shooting basically at eyelevel. The body and lens are not as important here as the shooting at eyelevel. This is where 99.9% of wildlife photographers shoot. What if we just change this by taking that lens out of the tripod?
A favorite tool I can’t recommend enough to wildlife photographers is the Panning Plate. This very simple tool is incredibly simplistic. It permits you to put whatever lens you’re shooting with right on the sand. Shooting birds at eyelevel does two HUGE things for your photography. First, it completely changes the point of view to one that is anything but common. Second, it eliminates the detail in the foreground and background so the subject pops. You can’t help but see the visual difference between the top image shot from the tripod and the bottom image shot from the sand. It’s that simple starting to make your uncommon photos and grabbing the viewer’s attention. Just be forewarned, our necks aren’t made to be bent to shoot on the sand for long periods. It does take a tool. Yes, there are more techniques and we’ll explore them all week. mtc.
May 23, 2014 | Wildlife Photography
I worked my first years with 400mm being my longest lens. I talk about the many lessons the 400mm taught me in Captured but one of the most important is working with small subjects. I’m not talking about the subject being physically small in real life, but small in the frame. Until you learn how to get close physically, another important lesson the 400mm teaches, most subjects are small in the frame and that’s ok! We just need to learn how to make them visually pop in the frame. There are many, many, many ways of making this happen and “ridge lining” is one of my favorite.
The elements in making a cool ridge lining photo is a ridge line, a really clean background (so subject pops) and a subject doing something interesting. The ridge line is very important as it needs to be “clean” and not taking the eye away from the subject. The background is sky and it can’t be any plan sky but have something unique about it. And finally the subject, it needs something working for it and not looking like some cardboard cut out. In these two example, the ridge line is pretty clean, no sticks, shrubs or rocks breaking the line to and from the Pronghorn. The sky is early morning blue so has that “black” tint to it. And the Pronghorn, two bucks busy sparing as they figure out how them new horns they are growing work. And both of these shots were taken with the D4s / 800mm w/.25 attached. Ya, a technique a 400mm lens taught me I still use today even with the bigger glass. Whatever the gear you have in your bag, when you make it work for you, it will teach you things that the smart photographer. You can make that great click when you connect the mind and the heart with the subject!
May 23, 2014 | Landscape Photography
If there’s one favorite subject worldwide, it’s the rising or setting sun. But just them colors isn’t enough to make it a great shot. It is enough to record your memory of that moment and that is VERY important! But to take the photo to the next level, making it worth sharing and grabbing other’s heart, you have to have a photo that at the very least, equals the memories of the viewer’s relationship with sunsets. Everyone on the planet has had at least one great moment with the sun as it rises or sets. Ours has to at least be that good in our photo. This is not an example of this, this is just a pretty moment in the Black Hills. It means something to me because of who introduced me to this spot for sunrise. Shooting D4s / 80-400VR3, underexposing -2/3, Cloudy WB, it took no more than getting up early and stopping to make the photo. But it takes more than pretty colors to reach out and grab your heart.
May 22, 2014 | Landscape Photography
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There we were with the prairie winds gusting making it hard to even open the car door. But it was creating the magic we were witnessing. But it was changing it so fast that no sooner you saw the magic and it was gone. It’s time when even 11FPS isn’t enough to capture that special moment that reaches out and tugs at the heartstrings. It was one of those afternoons when I grabbed the Df / 18-35AFS and went cloud chasing in the Black Hills. The ground winds tossing us around weren’t as strong above but still fast enough so the original scene I saw that made me stop was gone by the time I was out. Being a veteran of this kind of scenario, I made a mental snap of the three important elements that made me stop, the main little puffy over the saddle, the shadow on the peak on the left and the light on the foreground. What you see in the three are samples of this moment. It’s the last image, the one on the right that captures the best combination of those three elements that first made me stop. It’s the shadow on the peak on the left in combination with the amount of lit foreground that I like in the arranging of all the elements. The clouds blowing constantly changed that shadow as you can see but by retaining those three elements, I waited until it seemed to return. That shadow changed everything.
