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It should be no surprise that light also helps focus attention on a subject. Anomalies in lighting, like the partially lit flower in this photo, can subconsciously engage the audience.
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Life goes on with all it flaws, perfection is relatively rare. I think that sometimes it can be the enemy of our best efforts in photography, as in all things.
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Depth of field permits us to choose what we want to be in focus. It’s a judgement call. The decision is also part of every photographer’s style.
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This bird captures that look that many of the gulls I see have – mean, narrow eyed, like some nasty manager in a big box store, but I digress.
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Cormorants tend be far out on the water when sunning themselves, or flying faster than I can capture them. At 500mm it is still a stretch to get a shot like this, but the Nikon 200-500 5.6 is a brilliant lens.
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It’s choice to work in colour or black and white. This Downy Woodpecker has bright white feathers and sometimes depending on the background, better in colour than black and white.
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This photograph was complete happenstance. A relatively large bird, the green heron was moving fast and stopped for just an instant so I could get this portrait with its wonderful colour.
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I find it amusing when some small and relatively harmless animal just tries to stare me down.
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This great blue heron was walking on the lawn beside the path towards me. I just waited until he was parallel to the path and hedge. The black and white shows how easy it would have been to just to walk by and miss this four foot bird if one was not observant.
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This is one of about fifteen shots of the same ducks, they swam past and I kept shooting until they lined up just perfectly and I got the shot I was after.
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Depending on your point of view one of joys of flowers is that they attract insects. While this is a flower photo, had I had any of my close up gear, the insects would have had their day on film.
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Pulling out the detail in the flower exaggerated the noise. Today we go a long way to remove noise without thinking that with film we used grain as one of the compositional tools. You can argue they are different but the look is often the same.
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While working on this photo by accident I stumbled on this old movie look. It reminds me of some of the lighting used in Citizen Kane and Nosferatu.
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This was taken in a “Tudor Garden.” I like composing for the imagination. To misquote Aristotle, the parts can be visually and imaginatively more important than the whole.
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Depth of field is underrated. Most cameras and most zoom lenses sold, limit the use of depth of field because they do not permit the use of the same aperture throughout the range of the zoom. Buying your first F2.8 zoom is the day you really get on the road to your own style.
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My processing addresses exposure for the most part, as well as sharpness and composition. Within those there is a fair amount of latitude for creativity; how sharp, how bright, what colour filter etc. Brash or subtle it makes the final product unique.
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I am not quite as fond of cut flowers as I am of those in gardens and forests. But both brighten our days. This week my blog is all about flowers.
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Here I have mixed a smooth surfaced object with a textured background. Depending on the shooting angle, backgrounds can be a little challenging and need special attention.
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Backlighting glass is one of the ways of avoiding problematic reflections. Glass is interesting to work with given the various shapes and sizes available.
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Shooting things around the house may look easy but shiny surfaces, angles of light, types of lighting are all a little complicated to solve. The many tutorials on line help, but in the end, I think table top lighting has an interesting and fun learning curve.
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This was as close as I will ever get to Czar Nicholas II and frankly he’s not in such great shape. Reflection was created with a black acrylic sheet under the coin. The coin was held steady by some wax.
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Normally when I talk about reflections it’s about a bird on the water, but it’s a bit too cold for that now. So a scotch tasting glass made for an interesting subject. Even alone the glass looked great, but stacked on top of another similar glass you would think that a mirror was causing the effect.
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In the studio as out in nature a good background is important. Old scarves, coloured paper, out of focus furniture etc. etc. can be made to work.
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The pandemic has lead my wife and I to do some table-top photography with flash. It’s been a long time since I have so I am relearning old skills, putting it all together so to speak. See the second photo.
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There are many ways to look at things we see around us, many ways to “skin” the cat. It just takes imagination. Thankfully, we have teachers, entertainers, writers and artists who make us think and who tickle our imagination.
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Someone went and ruined the Monty Hall trick, made a fool of the shell game, in short what were they thinking?
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Are they waving, swaying or is it just the wind. I am told plants and trees communicate chemically so maybe they can do more, who knows.
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Is it a backdoor, a side door or the entrance to a house? There is something odd here that tests my modest understanding of modern architecture.
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Can flowers swarm, can they install a fear outside the inventions of science fiction.
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I never liked the four walls of an office, and still have a hard time sitting for a long time. Seeing these office windows made me realize nothing has changed, I still feel the same way.
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I think that certain things and some people have the power to spark our imaginations. I believe photography can be a tool to that end (captioned or not).
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It’s a textbook tip to shoot flowers from behind. Agreed. Nice to see them reaching for the stars.
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It’s always a pleasure to find a follower that stands out that has presence (dare I say charisma?)
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It’s probably because of John McCrae’s WWI poem “In Flanders Fields” that poppies have a certain aura. I like to think scenes like this speak to peace and not just to the consequences of war.
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I know that with insects I sometimes imagine alien beings and it’s with good cause the movies borrow from the bug world. In the case of flowers we can sometimes create a tinge of the alien, a hint of the strange.
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I am a big fan of the creative use of depth of field. Here the background reminds me of fog or mist and gives strength to the photo.
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When someone puts their face too close to your there is an element of threat about it. It is precisely for that reason that some argue face on flower photos lack sensitivity. I prefer the term immediacy to characterize those flower shots.
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There is symmetry and order in nature, but at a human scale it can appear chaotic or wild. I think there is reassurance in that.
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The nuthatch is looking for handouts of food and probably does not appreciate the circus skills it exhibits so well.
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The expression of “eyes in the back of your head” comes to mind when animals pretend not to notice you.
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Many birds find perches on the top of shrubs and trees. The chickadee can do the same on smaller flora and look just as noble.
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This wood duck did not take a liking to me, though what he intended to do about it was no clearer the longer he glared.
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I wouldn’t mind doing some singing myself though I suspect it would be no more appreciated than in the case of this goose.
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As the female widgeon sleeps the male stands guard.
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This is is the first of a week of avian photography. While many of these would make wonderful colour shots, I think there is more personality in the black and whites.
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Looking closely at this photograph, my eye imagined a man waving flags in the wind.
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Depth of field is one of the better tools in photography. You can use it to isolate a subject, define your object, frame it and in some cases make your subject almost look like its moving forward.
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I took this photo because I have had some success with tree stumps as subjects. But this partially submerged trunk had a more ominous look than most of the ones I normally shoot.
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Yesterday I spoke about the importance of backgrounds. Some find the round ball shaped background called bokeh a pleasing background. Some lenses are made for bokeh, for the others it’s often luck.
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As I have noted several times backgrounds are important. They can make or break a photo. In black and white, backgrounds take on a simpler form but should still complement the subject.
