Light & Exposure, light & dark

Jan 28, 2010 | Wildlife Photography

When I blogged about my minor discovery of how Vivid in Picture Control helped with contrast in a flat lighting situation, all sorts of emails, tweets and wallpostings came in. Then when I blogged about Exp Comp, even more showed up. Understandably, there is a lot of confusion in these regards stemming I think from a “Post Fix Generation” and general lack of understanding light. If you don’t understand light, you’re behind the eight ball at the camera and in post since light is what photography is all about.

The blog and it’s limited space only affords me so much in the way of help, but here’s something that I hope you can easily see on your monitor and it has to do with light and back engineering images to learn from them. When shooting in snow, as I’ve written about in the last few weeks, you have this magical, giant white reflector that bounces light everywhere. That’s if, you have light to bounce. Looking at the Bison photo above, you can see with the gorgeous filtered light the Bison’s great brown coat. To me, this is near perfect Bison light because you can see so many shades of brown. And with the white nearly a perfect white value, the exposure is about as good as it gets, technically.

Now look at this photo of a Bison, one from the series I posted from Vivid. Do you see any brown on the Bison? Do you see any white in the snow? No, the Bison is black and the snow is gray which indicates the total lack of light. The lesson photographers need to grasp. While both images were shot in overcast light, a must for Bison, the top photo is a very slight overcast and the bottom one, it’s snowing dood, there ain’t no light value sneaking in. The top image, the snow has light to bounce, the bottom image, the snow if yuck. In that scenario, the image will be dark because there is NO light. And light is everything!

Could either image be brightened up? You bet, you could use Exp Comp (if you’re shooting in Manual, this won’t work. But that begs the question, why are you shooting like it’s the ’60s?). Exp Comp on the Plus side would brighten up the scene. Should you do that? That’s your call, it’s YOUR photograph and YOUR story to tell. Do you need to technically? Who the %^#*# cares about technical, I sure don’t! Exposure = Emotion, plain and simple. You dial in Exp Comp to express the emotion you feel and want to communicate! And that’s the real problem for most photographers, they just don’t understand how to connect the emotion they feel looking through the viewfinder to the image they share.

Hummm…someone should write a book about that :)

Photo captured by D3s, 200-400VR (handheld) / D3x, 600VR on Lexar UDMA digital film

The Log and the Coyote

Jan 28, 2010 | Wildlife Photography

Have you done much Coyote photography? If you have and spent time with them in a forested area, you know that if there is a log, a Coyote will most often jump up on it. The problem is at least for me is even though you know that, I don’t always prepare for it. I’m just slow sometimes, the obvious just ain’t obvious. Well, this time I thought about it.

[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp9206.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]

Coyotes in winter in the mountains are just gorgeous animals. Their thick coat often leads folks to believe they are wolves. They are very much opportunistic hunters eating almost anything they can kind. And they are expert mousers, using their keen sense of hearing to listen the mouse’s movement under the snow. There are lots of shot of them in mid air, bouncing on a mouse they’ve been listening to and waiting until the right moment to bounce. That does take energy and that requires calories. That, along with it is easier for mice and voles to follow air pocket along fallen logs in snow is why they jump up on logs. Now, if I can just remember that when it comes time to shoot!

Photo captured by D3s, 200-400VR (handheld) on Lexar UDAM digital film

So Close….but

Jan 28, 2010 | Wildlife Photography

There’s this shot I’ve wanted for a long, long, long time. I saw it in my minds eye once, back in the days of film and traipsing around in the Bitteroots. It’s a shot in the perfect light of just a Bighorn ram’s eye and a little bit of its curl. I had the light and had a ram approaching me to where I thought I might get the shot. But no, it wasn’t to happen right this moment.

Thoughts of biology and possible biological events that could occur along with images I want constantly go through my mind when I’m shooting. I find that having those thoughts up front in my thinking helps me be prepared for then they occur to make the shot. I demonstrates at least to myself the importance of not thinking photography but thinking subject. I don’t know about you, but my mind can only process so much at one time. Thinking biology and possible images is where I reach my limits which is why I keep saying the technical side of photography must be dealt with on a subconscious level.

Photo captured by D3s, 200-400VR (handheld) on Lexar UDMA digital film

The Wonders of a Howl

Jan 28, 2010 | Wildlife Photography

“Moose, watch carefully, the pack is trying to cross the road.” We crept down the road and set up under the OP. From less then 100yrd away, over the ridge, a chorus of howls filled the air. Then on the ridge, 642F appeared and then disappeared as it jogged towards the pups. Then from behind us a lone howl bounced off the falling snow and down to us. It was greeted with another chorus from over the ridge. The beauty of the silence of the falling snow then filled with the howls from Blacktail and Lave Creek Packs was one of those great wildlife photography treasures we’ll never forget!

[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp9505.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]

The black wolf is the beta 642F (F=female) of the Blacktail Pack. They made a big move north during the night, something they’ve not done for a while. They had made a kill just prior to our arrival at daylight near the heliport at Mammoth Hot Springs. Nate, the wolf biologist who told us the whole store and so much more was standing there telling us how cars on the road were keeping her from crossing (also told a few horror stories of photographers chasing these magnificent creatures) when she finally crossed and appeared on a ridge to the south. It was a great view and we really love this photo because it sums up the morning for us. These magnificent creatures are critters of the wilderness and that’s what we heard, saw, experienced and felt this morning of wolf work.

There was more action with the Canyon Pack since our leaving the Madison. My new friend Jesse has a blog (the wolf biologist) which covers what it is he does as a wildlife tech in Yellowstone. For any wildlife photographer, working with biologists is essential and readers of my work know I credit my success to these selfless folks doing amazing work. Give Jesse’s blog a read, you’ll learn a lot!

Photo captured by D3x, 600VR w/TC-17e on Lexar UDMA digital film

The Ridge Line

Jan 27, 2010 | Wildlife Photography

You might be getting tired of all the sheep photos but I just can’t help myself (and there’s still more to come). While I love showing them off, I want to help you get the same image if you have even a hint of the passion for Bighorns I do. I wanted to talk about ridge lining.

These are the masters of the cliffs, literally! Their hooves are designed so they velcro to sheer rock on impossible faces in the nastiest of weather with no effort. This makes them love the high ground, making any predator coming up to them which is really, really difficult. So you often see sheep on ridge lines which is not only biologically very sheep, it’s photographically very cool.

[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP9406.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]

And Sharon’s eye once again make the shot possible! I’m watching one slope and Sharon’s watching another. I have rams staring me in the eye and she’s scanning the ridge line for the cool photo opps. You have a young ram, old ram and a young ewe all demonstrating what it is to be a Bighorn. Once found, it’s a matter of light, background and image size to make the image speak sheep. I love the challenge, I love the results.

[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_bmp4385.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]

Photos captured by D3s, 600VR / 200-400VR on Lexar UDMA digital film

Overcoming Old Habit?

Jan 26, 2010 | Wildlife Photography

I think it comes from film days when I had just enough money to buy film but not get it all processed right away. Shooting brief action was something I got low returns of success and when it cost money with every click, I wouldn’t take the chance on photographing brief action. Whatever the hesitation is on hitting the shutter release, I push myself now that whenever I see action no matter how brief if the image looks sharp, I hit the shutter release. It does pay off.

[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP9146.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]

We were out in Lamar Valley seeing lots of critters, especially coyotes. There was a wolf kill and they seem to be pairing up, the combination brought them out of the woodwork. This pair was quite enamored with themselves and for a while, ignored the vehicles piling up to photograph them. In fact, most drove off, bored with the two just piss on this push and crapping on that, typical coyote behavior when in love (sound romantic, doesn’t it?).

[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP9169.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]

Then they decided it was time to move and move they did. They ran down the hillside right towards us. I didn’t hesitate, got glass on the single animal, the D3x locked on and I fired. The combination of the action, spraying powder, dried weeds the same color as the coyote scattered about the frame, I really like the image and the whole time with the pair. When love is in the air, critters tend to ignore us and great images can come from that opportunity. With encouragement like this, gotta keep working on that old, bad habit.

Photos captured by D3x, 200-400VR (handheld) on Lexar UDMA digital film