Fill Flash--Bring your Own Sun! (Part One)

Assassin Bug, Peruvian Amazon

Photographing from below can increase the sense of drama, especially if the subject is a predator, such as this assassin bug. If done well, it gives the viewer the feeling of being prey.

One of the technical problems, however, may be that light still falls from above, and the lower parts of the subject may be in shadow.

Full flash will light the subject, certainly, but then you have a harsh light, with the potential for those horrible (opinionated!) black backgrounds. A reflector might work, if your subject is dead, sleeping, or very passive.

Solution: Fill flash! Fill flash, when adjusted properly, supplies just enough light to "fill" those areas of darkness just enough to show the detail you want, without being overpowering.

One of the things that I appreciate most about digital photography is the immediate feedback that I get by looking at the LCD immediately after shooting. I can tell right away whether my lighting is effective or not, and make the appropriate adjustments. In the next several blogs, I will share my own techniques for fill-flash.

Welcome Back!!!

Variable Clown Treefrog (Hyla triangulum) on water hyacinth


Well, I'm back (and so are you, if you're reading this...). I'm back from a wonderful week in that paradise for macro photographers, the Amazon Rainforest located along the portion of the Amazon river that runs through Peru.

Those of you who know me are aware that I have been down there many times in the past, but each trip is different, each trip reaps a harvest of varied experiences and photographs.

Over the next several weeks/months, I would like to share some of the things I learned and saw over that magical period. Equipment and ideas that worked, some that didn't. Images that I felt were successful, ones that disappointed...

If you click on the title line ("WELCOME BACK"), you will be transported to my archive from the trip. As usual, comments and questions are welcomed, and in fact, eagerly anticipated!

Islas Encantadas: The Enchanted Galapagos Islands

Yes, I know. It's not really a macro image.
But I really wanted to share some of these images.

ENJOY!!!

Click on the above title link or copy and paste it to travel to SCRIBD and the Enchanted Galapagos Islands:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/8426276/EnchantedGalapagos

Islas Encantadas:

FANTASY...

99% of the time, I work in Photoshop the way I used to work in the darkroom--I manipulate contrast and dynamic range with layer masks instead of paper grades. I do my dodging and burning on adjustment layers with a trackball (I must admit that I do miss waving my hands above the print as though I were performing ancient magics...). Every so often, however, I stray from the pure and unpolluted path and lose myself in the creative potential of the program.

This Morpho butterfly was photographed in bright noonday sunlight in Costa Rica. There must have been a 20 stop contrast range and I worked for hours, trying unsuccessfuly to create a reasonable image. Not even PhotoMatix (an HDR program) could salvage this one. So I said, "Let's ignore reality and just play".

And there you have it...

WILLIAM J. HIGGINSON

I began pairing photographs with haiku perhaps 7 or 8 years ago, but became increasingly frustrated with the variance in translations of the same poems, my inability to arrange the combinations into a coherent order, and near-total ignorance of the cultural aspects and meanings of the verses.

I owned many of Bill Higginson’s books, most well thumbed and note-laden, and when his name appeared during one of my Internet searches, a bulb just went off. I emailed him in 2002, he graciously responded, and over the next 4 years, after journeys down many side canyons, we assembled the project that became Butterfly Dreams. It remains the single accomplishment in my life that I am most proud of, and it would simply not exist were it not for Bill.

Pity Bill!
I’m sure he will receive credits in his next life for his patience with me during this crafting.

Bill: “This combination simply doesn’t fit together—the haiku you quoted is incorrectly translated and when fixed, makes no sense with this image.”

Michael: “But the subject matter is such a good match…can’t we use the incorrect translation?”

Bill: “Groan” (reaching for Maalox).
And so on and so on.

Bill always won those discussions, and rightfully so. He was patient with my ignorance, but unyielding in his pursuit of accuracy and purity in his chosen genre. (And no, we did not use any “incorrect” translations…)

Bill passed away this afternoon. His wife, partner, and fellow-poet Penny Harter was at his side, singing to him as he left. May we all be so blessed.

White Balance

Copy and paste the link below or click on the post title "White Balance" to go to a short article about White Balance:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/6455684/White-Balance

Bracketing in the digital age

Growth rarely seems to be one single epiphany, rarely a situation where one is suddenly faced with a new reality and yells, “AHA”!!! Archimedes notwithstanding, I think artistic growth is more often a series of small steps that delivers us to a new way of looking at our world.

When I was a beginning photographer, I would bracket (making multiple exposures at different camera settings) extensively, hoping desperately that at least one exposure would correctly translate my vision onto film. My wastebasket overflowed, but I learned eventually how to create a “good” exposure. (As long as I could remember which settings I had used for each image). As my skills increased, I found myself looking with disdain at the process of bracketing, seeing it as a sign of a shooter not really confident in his or her understanding of light and exposure. It was a great source of satisfaction to “nail” an exposure and having the confidence not to bracket. Seems pretty shallow in retrospect, eh?

Interesting that now as a digital photographer, I find myself bracketing probably more than ever. I no longer bracket for general exposure, the histogram having pretty much eliminated that worry. I do bracket for very specific exposure, such as the images I placed on the blog previously, in which the color range could not be captured with one exposure. I also bracket for dynamic range, where image contrast far exceeds what I can capture with one exposure. I also bracket for depth-of-field, using layer masks in Photoshop to blend images together in order to increase apparent depth-of-field. And of course, I bracket composition, often choosing my favorite image after the fact, on the computer screen.

“What goes around…”

P.S. The attached image has nothing to do with bracketing. I'm just having trouble letting go of summer. Sorry.

The End of Summer...

The second official day of autumn and I couldn't sleep, not ready for summer to end. In a futile attempt to hold it back, I share the above haiku/photograph combination, which is actually a late summer haiku, according to haiku master and friend Bill Higginson, who is responsible for the original translation of the Japanese poem as part of the Butterfly Dreams project.
The truth is, all things end. All we can do is hope for spring.

Butterfly House Photography:Tips and Techniques

Well, that last one worked so well, I thought I'd try it again.
Click on the title above to go to a pdf:

Enjoy!!

and thanks to Jeanine Leech (http://www.doubleplaydesigns.com/) for layout assistance!