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!

Thought I would try something a bit different this time. Click on the link

Photography on the Peruvian Amazon

to go to a pdf about my favorite photographic place. Please let me know if it works.
Thanks.

End of...the Season

our garden,

long past prime...

bleeding hearts

Grasshopper--a Haiku Photograph

I don’t think of my photographs as being “minimalist” necessarily, but I can’t deny that I look for simplicity. Two of my earliest influences were Japanese ink block artists Hiroshige and Hokusai.

What I learned:

• Not every square millimeter of image space needs to be filled.

• Space that contains nothing may make a significant contribution to the impact of the image; it sets off the subject as a beautiful setting sets off a diamond. It gives the subject a space to move into, thus aiding in establishing a story— establishing potential for future movement.

• Negative space is not the same as empty space. Empty space is merely empty space--it contains nothing, contributes nothing. Negative space has no content but offers possibility, and contains potential.
  

Back to haiku:
While my son Ben was living in Washington D.C., we went to an exposition of prints by Hokusai at the Smithsonian. I recall an image which showed a meticulously drawn branch, leaves, and flowers, but nowhere to be seen were the birds after which the painting was named. Perhaps the birds were sitting on the branch when he began the painting; perhaps he could simply hear their songs as he was painting; perhaps he simply imagined that branch as an ideal roosting place for the birds; perhaps…
See what I mean? Haiku photographs are all about possibilities.

Color Problems: Part 3

I then take a second exposure, using values that bring the red histogram back within reasonable range. I say reasonable because there may be spikes of red and yellow which are simply NOT capture-able (is that a word?) by your sensor. This looks like a pretty under-exposed image on the LCD, but I take it anyway.

When both images are opened in Camera Raw (or whatever software you use), there is visible detail in the darker one within the areas of red that were blown out on the original exposure. When I blend those two together, I have one image which maintains detail throughout.

Color Problems: Part 2

So here is the original image. Again, the luminance histogram (the black-and-white one) tells me that the exposure is just fine. Experience tells me, however, that red is n easy color to overexpose, and I check the RGB histogram. Imagine my (lack of) surprise when it shows me that the red channel is way blown out!

I take my first exposure based on the luminance histogram, and you can see above the areas of red next to and in front of the Japanese beetle that have no detail whatsoever.

Color Problems: Part 1

Yes, I know it's not a bug, but I will use it anyway to illustrate a point that I stumbled over recently while photographing birds with Matthew Studebaker, who is a superb workshop leader and an encyclopedia of avian knowledge.

The luminance (black-and-white) histogram for this bird read just fine in the field, with no obvious burnt-out highlights. Imagine my surprise when I opened the image in Camera Raw and found that there was a color highlight burnt out to the point where it was not even retrievable! The yellow on this bird's chest and throat contains NO detail. I could not even use my trick of bringing over two images and blending them--even grossly underexposed, sorry, NO detail in the yellow. Ray Klass, Photoshop Guru extraordinaire, showed me an another technique, an old printer's trick called "plate blending", which has to do with bringing detail from one channel back into the original image. The problem is that there has to be detail in one channel to begin with. In this image there was none. A potentially interesting shot, but unusable.

This image awakened me to the purpose of the RGB histogram which Nikon has so kindly included in most of their newer cameras.

Crab Spider on Datura

Two items of interest here. One is the neat way that the spider's arm recapitulates the curve of the datura's petal. This is pure serendipity--you can move some insects around to pose them--the arachnids generally are not amenable to that type of manipulation and will usually head underneath the flower.

The second issue is the white flower. For hairy insects (yes, I know--a spider is not an insect), I like to use fill flash to help the little hairs stand out a bit more. It is very easy to over-expose whites, and I rely heavily on my histogram to prevent this. With whites, the luminance histogram (black and white) is quite adequate. With colors, particularly reds and yellows, the luminance histogram may not tell the entire story, as we will see in the next post.

Another Dragonfly...

Yes, another dragonfly picture. I like this one a bit better than the first I posted. This has a softer entry into the frame--the triangle of grasses doesn't come in quite as abruptly from the lower edge, allowing the insect to float upwards. The stem on which the dragonfly is perched is angled in the opposite direction as the grass stems in the background, lending a bit of tension to the image. And I like how the two dewy strands of spiderweb recapitulate the dewy whiteness of the wingtips.
What I don't like--I wish I had used a shallower depth-of-field, so the background grasses would be just a bit less distinct and distracting. Often a change from f8 to f5.6 will be enough to give you a softer background. Of course, I know that in theory--I just wish I had thought of it in the field. This would be difficult to blur in Photoshop because of all the interacting lines, some foreground or subject, some background.

Just Playing...

AUTUMN HAIKU

MOUSE MYSTERY

"a snake’s hole

the foolish mouse has

gone right in"

Issa


translation © 2006 William J. Higginson


"Although no snake or snake hole is visible, our imaginations can easily supply the details of the story presented by footprints in Escalante River mud and scattered seeds. Perhaps the mouse did live another day after his hurried dinner. Or perhaps he in turn became dinner for our hypothetical snake, (or fox, owl, hawk, or some other predator). You supply the ending of the story."

"A DIFFERENT DRUMMER..."

"this way and that

this frog’s cousins

and second cousins"

Issa

translation © 2006 William J. Higginson


In the 1960s and 70s, the underside of every palmetto leaf in the Florida Everglades seemed to host its own resident family of green tree frogs (Hyla cinerea). Sadly, in many areas, this is no longer the case. If the frog is indeed our “canary in the coal mine”, we are in deep trouble.

The lighting here is a bit harsh, (see the shadows under the leaf rib, for instance), as this image was shot long before the days of TTL fill flash with a manual Sunpack 444 on 1/8 power. (In those days, I was using a 105mm Noflexar on the Novoflex Auto Bellows). The manual flash caused the “hot spot” on the hind leg of the larger frog, a common problem when shooting wet subjects. If I were to re-shoot this today, I would use either fill flash, polarized flash, a diffuser or some combination of the preceding techniques.

HAIKU PHOTOGRAPHS

The following is an excerpt from the electronic edition of a book that I published with William J. Higginson last year (my photographs, Bill's original translations of classical Japanese haiku).

“What are haiku and what do they have to do with photography?
Haiku are short “one-breath” poems, written in the present tense, that describe the writer's perception of some event taking place in the natural world. They are thus “in the moment”, a verbal snapshot, if you will, and may include all of nature (including humanity) as their frame of reference. The haiku poet tries to be objective and transparent, i.e. not allowing his or her ego to stand between the verse and the reader, although some say that simply the act of selecting a subject demonstrates a bias of sorts. Many haiku appear simply descriptive and straightforward on the surface, but may contain layers of deeper meanings. Reading haiku should not be a passive experience, but is like playing “fill in the blanks”. The poem should be suggestive and evocative as well as documentary, and should invite involvement. Rather than allowing you to sit back and admire the technique and artistry, it engages you in the process—Can you feel what the poet felt at the moment of inspiration and insight? Can you see the butterfly wings? Can you hear the cicada songs? And what else?
Now re-read the preceding paragraph again and substitute photography for haiku. Not a very difficult jump to make, is it?”

A "haiku photograph" also leaves the viewer with a part of the story to fill in.

Silhouettes

Field Theory and Perspective in the Context of Katydids: Part Two

Again, I began the process of "composition repair" by taking the camera off the tripod and moving around the subject. Fortunately, this event occurred in the evening and the slightly cool katydid was fairly calm and satisfied just to keep an eye on me as I worked. I had noticed in the background of the previous photograph a small blotch of yellow that turned out to be a patch of sunflowers in another part of the garden. I chose an angle that separated the katydid from the leaf, and a position that used the out-of-focus yellow sunflowers as my background. Much more pleasing, aesthetically, I think. A shallow depth-of-field (notice the repeating theme?) separates the katydid from its background, but I was not totally successful in paralleling the camera plane with the subject plane. (Did anyone notice the missing leg?)

ADDENDUM:
Although the second image is more dramatic and shows off the katydid more effectively, the first photo is not a "bad" shot. If, for instance, I were writing an article on camouflage, I could very well choose that first image as an illustration.

Field Theory and Perspective in the Context of Katydids: Part One

How's that for a convoluted title? Don't fret--all will become clear.

I have been photographing small critters for almost 40 years, and have shown, sold, and taught. One of the more common questions that I'm asked actually has nothing to do with equipment, technique, Photoshop, etc. It goes something like, "how on earth do you see those things?" Aside from the fact that I'm looking for them, there is another process at work below the conscious level that helps me in the field.

I have a friend who was a dedicated hunter. He didn't believe in ambushing from tree stands--he stalked his deer with a bow and arrow, and claims that all he needed was the twitch of an ear or flick of a tail, and the deer was his. He hunts now with a long telephoto lens, but the lessons he learned as a hunter have stood him in good stead in his new persona as a wildlife photographer. What he was doing was identifying field patterns.

When we become really familiar with an environment, we internalize the patterns that it contains. The patterns of branches, leaves, ripples, etc. all become associated in our minds with that environment. Although this is a subconscious process, we can call upon it and bring it into awareness. When I am in the field, my eyes/brain pick out anomalies or variations from the familiar patterns. Subconscious: "Hmmm, the lump on that leaf should not be there as part of the leaf; what is it?" And. there it is--a leaf-green katydid! Or the antenna of a praying mantis, peeking out from behind an identically-colored stalk of grass.

This photograph is an "accurate" one in that it portrays the animal camouflaged in its environment. It is, however, certainly not an aesthetic tour-de-force." How can we fix this? On to Part Two!

Monarch Butterfly Caterpillar (Daneus plexippus)

This monarch butterfly caterpillar is pretty well isolated against its background. It was photographed at f8 and I tried to parallel the sensor plane of the camera with the plane of the caterpillar's body. The choice of d-o-f is always a compromise in macrophotography--too much and backgrounds and foregrounds become distracting. Too little, and parts of the subject that you would like to be sharp are not.

Neither the monarch butterfly nor its caterpillar are subtle in their coloration. In fact, they advertise their identity. They are toxic and/or bad-tasting and are avoided by most birds. Like many caterpillars, the monarch has a set of "horns" both fore and aft, to confuse predators so they will not know which end is which. This gives the caterpillar better odds of surviving an attack.

Spider and Web 2

Spider and Web 1

Spiders and Spider Webs

Spiders and their webs become increasingly interesting subjects as we enter late summer. They are larger than the spiderlings we saw in spring and early summer, and their webs are larger and more intricate. In addition, cooler mornings give us more opportunity for dewy webs.

These two images demonstrate several issues so vital to effective macrophotography: perspective and depth-of-field (d-o-f). Both images were photographed at f5.6, for shallow depth-of-field. If I had not done this, the spider and web would have disappeared into background clutter. The shallow d-o-f isolated the subject nicely. (In this case the subject is both the spider and the web.

After choosing the aperture, I then took the camera OFF the tripod and moved around the subject as best I could (there were pretty dense bushes in front of the spider, so I could not approach from the front) to evaluate the view from different angles. The lateral angle isolates the spider well, but doesn't show much of the web detail. To show more of the web, I had to photography from slightly below the level of the web (with the camera back on the tripod, of course).

Yet Another Use for Layer Masks...

We know that depth-of-field decreases as magnification increases, that is, as you move closer to your subject. In this image, I could either have the edge of the flower in focus or the insides of the flower, but not both at the f-stop I had chosen. And I had chosen a shallow depth-of-field because I wanted the background to be just a soft green, with no distracting detail.

Once again, Photoshop to the rescue. I photographed the flower twice, once with the inside sharp and once with the edge sharp. No other settings were changed except for the point of focus. In Photoshop, I brought both images together with a Layer Mask. (I always make the top image the one from which I will be using the most information, in this case the outer flower). I then used the Brush tool to bring out the sharp detail in the center. Note that there will always be a slight change in size, since when you change focus, there will be a change in magnification.

Once again, is this cheating? Or are we simply bringing to the screen the image as our eyes saw it in the field? Your call, but perhaps another reason to learn to use Photoshop's Layer Mask. But remember, this is a technique that needs to be planned for while you are photographing. I have put together as many as four exposures of the same subject to create the image I wished to see.

Fill-flash with Early Morning Light

The sun rises here at about 6:15, and the light is sufficient for focusing at about 6:30 or thereabouts. This is my favorite time for photography. I love the soft, even light, relative lack of wind, and cooperative subjects. Insects are poikilothermic, or cold-blooded. Their activity level rises and falls with the temperature of their surroundings. In the chill of the early morning, they are torpid and slow--posing nicely, just like this beetle. I occasionally use fill-flash in situations like this. Sometimes the lighting can be too flat, and fill-flash can add just a bit of "pop" to the colors without destroying the soft feel of the image.

Layer Masks for Increased Contrast Range II

Here is another photograph which required some manipulation to salvage a full contrast range. If I had exposed for the bee, the leading edge of the flower would have been totally burnt out. On the other hand, if I exposed for the flower, the bee would have been totally black, and without detail.

I used a slightly different technique for this image than for the last one. I made one exposure, taking care to maintain highlight detail. Then, in Photoshop, the RAW image was brought over twice, once correcting for the highlights, and the second time, correcting for shadow detail. These two images were then blended together with a layer mask into one image that maintained detail in both shadows and highlights.

I have found that using a layer mask to blend together almost identical images is an indispensable technique, at least for the type of photography I prefer. I use it to assist with depth-of-field issues as well as contrast range.

Layer Masks for Increasing Contrast Range I

When I first noticed this Beautiful Wood Nymph (Eudryas grata) on the clematis leaf, I was immediately struck by the image, but knew that there would be an exposure problem. There is at least an 8 stop contrast range from the white on the moth's "shoulders" to the dark purple of the clematis. Your eyes can "see" approximately a 20 stop range of contrast, but modern sensors can record perhaps 7 or 8 stops at best, barely better than film.

If the petals and leaves were properly exposed, the white areas on the moth would be totally "blown out" and over-exposed. If, on the other hand, I exposed for the white areas, the remainder of the image would be grossly underexposed.

Photoshop to the rescue! I made 2 exposures, one with the white areas of the moth exposed for maximum highlight detail, and the other, a more "normal" exposure, for the darker tones. Both images were then brought into Photoshop and a layer mask was used to combine the correctly exposed highlights of one photograph with the darker tones of the other. The resulting image demonstrated the tonal and contrast range of the original scene, which could not have been captured in a single image.

This is a relatively simple technique which I consider a "bread-and-butter" tool. It involves use of the histogram in the field and a layer mask in Photoshop.

So, your question of the day is, "Is this cheating?"

The Smaller Majority--A Book Review

The Smaller Majority
by Piotr Naskrecki
The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005

What occurs when you couple a meticulous scientist’s awareness of detail with the eye of an artist? It
seems that you wind up with Piotr Naskrecki, Director of the Invertebrate Diversity Initiative of Conservation, International and Research Associate with the Museum
of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.
Unlike many of us who learn about our subjects in order to obtain
better photographs, Neskrecki is a working entomologist who learned photography in order to advance his
research and study.

“What started as an attempt to simply document some of these organisms with a camera my wife had surprised me with one Christmas day quickly developed into a photographic passion for capturing all things small and overlooked by many nature photographers. Very early on I discovered that it gives me immensely more satisfaction to lower my lens and look for animals hiding on the forest floor than to take a picture of an elephant or toucan, subjects that have already been expertly photographed”.

Naskrecki’s chosen subjects are small “match-box sized” creatures; insects and other invertebrates (animals who wear their skeletons on the outside) that make up over 90% of the visible animal species populating this planet. In fact, by sheer numbers, it is more their planet
than ours.

“This book is a treasure house of images and information about a world most of us are barely aware of.”
--Frans Lanting


“The best kind of nature writing: by a scientific expert of the subject, beautifully illustrated, and with striking, original examples.”
--Edward O. Wilson

Warning: This is not truly a “photography book” per se, and certainly not a photo-instruction book, in the sense of multi-page discussions of pixels, cameras, or lenses. Even the one chapter specifically on photography deals mostly in generalities; there is more discussion of plastic bags than tripods. I doubt, however, that you could find better macro work anywhere, and if you can learn from examining superb examples, the lessons on these pages will not be wasted. Naskrecki has a fine awareness of composition and lighting (not many black backgrounds in his flash shots, and the ones that are present are mostly nocturnal.) Flash is used expertly, and is unobtrusive. His use of very wide-angle lenses up-close shows off his subjects like diamonds in the settings of their proper environments.
How could you not love a book whose first bit of advice for dealing with the overwhelming sensory overload of a first trip to the tropical rainforest is to leave your camera behind? Just walk, observe, and acclimate your vision to a new perspective.

Naskrecki discusses species lost to us forever, even over the past few years, but also leaves us with hope by including images of animals newly discovered, some never before photographed. No, the book is not just about bugs—there are also plenty of frogs, geckos, and other small creatures.

Five Stars out of Five--Highly recommended.

To read more about this book visit:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/features/nassma/

Composites---Imagination at Work!

I couldn't show dragonfly photographs without posting this one. One of my favorite images, it is entirely made up. It was composed of 4 different photographs and put together in Photoshop.
Reeds, insect, moon, and clouds--all from different times and places. The only common denominator--my imagination.

What I like:
The monotonic, dreamy softness of it.

What I don't like:
Not much. I'm not sure that the perspective of the moon is totally believable in terms of size and sharpness.

Any comments?

Backgrounds to Isolate Your Subjects...

This is the dragonfly image that kept disappearing whenever I would try to post it. Thanks for your patience while I learn how to do this blog thing.

What I Like:

The triangular composition is a very stable one, although its very stability risks making the image seem static and non-living. The background is more mottled, and, to my eyes, more natural than a monotone "posterboard-type" background. And a nice pose.

What I don't like:

I don't care for the abruptness with which the grasses explode out of the base of the frame. If I could do it again, I would try to vignette the bottom of the frame by holding some grasses or leaves close to the front of the lens. I suppose I could do a gradual blur in Photoshop, but I always prefer to "get it right in the camera".

Japanese Kite Butterfly

Tips for Butterfly Photography:

• Use shallow depth-of-field to blur busy and distracting backgrounds

• Use a longer macro lens to "compress" backgrounds

• Frame the subject with appropriate secondary subjects

• Keep the plane of the butterfly's wings parallel to the camera plane to maximize depth-of-field even while using a wide aperture to blur the background

What I like:
The balance of the image. I like how the bud recapitulates the color and position of the butterfly.

Cabbage Butterfly

What I like:
The balance of the image. I like how the bud recapitulates the color and position of the butterfly.

What I don't like:
The image appears almost two-dimensional -- quite flat. I used fill flash and perhaps this has obliterated the texture that gives objects their dimensionality. Background is BORING! Looks almost like poster board. Would selective dodging and burning help?