A Few Shot From Lilley's Landing

[Chuck Gardner]

These are several years old, but are some of my all time favorite shots taken at Lilley's Landing...

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[davekeim]

Very nice pics! Wish I could do that!

Signed,

Cardiac

[Gary Lange]

Really nice Pictures Chuck. I like the ones with the Spider Webs especially. Did you ever say what Camera you are using? Is it Digital or Film? I saw on the other thread that you are using a EOS 20D DSLR. That is a very nice camera.

[damselfly]

LOVE the calla lillies!

[Chuck Gardner]

Really nice Pictures Chuck. I like the ones with the Spider Webs especially. Did you ever say what Camera you are using? Is it Digital or Film? I saw on the other thread that you are using a EOS 20D DSLR. That is a very nice camera.

Those were taken with my previous digital camera, a 5MP Minolta D7Hi... The real "secret" is that there's a good deal of post processing in Photoshop in all of those images. Shots straight out a digital camera are generally are unsharp to some degree because of the way the sensor captures and interpolates the image. Also the contast will be flat, especially when the lighting is overcast or indirect so its necessary to manipulate it so what is mose important in the photo jumps out and contrasts with the background.

By way of analogy to fly fishing a good deal of the success comes not from knowing how to cast the fly but rather from knowning what fly to tie, when to put it on the line based on an understanding of how a fish thinks. You need two skill sets: The mechanics of being able to cast your fly where the fish is, but more importantly understanding where the fish might be and what he wants to eat far enough in advance that you'd got exactly the right fly tied and in the box.

Same with digital photography: You need one skill set to compose and expose the photo, and another to post processs it to look like what to saw in person. The overall sucess depends as much or more on the post processing than the capture, where about the most you can do is get the exposure correct.

When I look at a scene I know from experince the how the camera will record things differently than how I see. My tutorials on my web page http://super.nova.org/DPR/ start with a discussion of how what our cameras record is different than what we see in person. The first step in taking better photos is to train your brain to see like a camera will record the scene. Seeing and eliminating distractions is a big part of that. The second part is knowing how you can manipulate what the camera captured - with all its technical limitations - back into the image in your mind's eye that inspired you to take the photo in the first place.

The difference between a snapshot and a photo starts by asking yourself these questions:

1) What is most important in the photo?

2) What message / emotional reaction do I want the viewer to have when they see it?

When I saw the Heron on the roof above the guy fishing my thought was how they were totally unaware of each other, but united by a common bond, the joy of catching fish. But in the camera capture the tin roof was much brighter to the point it overpowered everything else in the photo. When you looked at it you'd be blinded by the contrast of the big roof and have trouble seeing either the bird or the man. I realized that when I took the shot but also knew I could manipulate it with duplicate layer masks to tone it down the roof and other distractions to the point where you see the guy fishing and the Heron contrast the most with the background and you don't really notice the roof much at all.

A big part of how people react to photos is what they see and when they see it when looking at a photo. Photos with a strong center of interest are more effective than those where the viewer is left wandering and wondering which of the 101 things in it is most important. A photo can be planned like a joke, a one-liner with a quick punchline - a single strong focal point in the brightest or most contrasting part of the photo - or one of those long winding yarns where you get surprised at the end with a punchline you aren't expecting.

Most photos wind up with predominantly dark backgrounds so what you want to do is first figure out what you think is most important, then figure out how to make it the brightest area in the photo because that's where the viewer's eye will go first - the brightest spot in the photo. But you can also plan and compose a photo so the whole story isn't blurted out all at once but unfolds slowly as the viewer's eye scans the photo.

Faces and contrast plays a huge role in what people will notice first and what they will see next. Our brains are hard wired to recognize faces and react emotionally to them. It's why you can spot a familar person in a big crowd quickly or indentify someone at a distance from their shape. The brain matches the patterns its sees to things it knows. So if there is a person in the photo it will attract the most interest and the viewer will try to make eye contact. Next the eye will wander off to whatever contrasts the most with the background. It's pretty much common sense that you'll have a more difficult time seeing a face in a photo if he's wearing an orange hunting cap. But sometimes the difference between a good photo an a distracting one is simply remembering that and saying, "Hey Fred, take off your hat for the picture."

The shot of the dock and the spider web is an example of how you can try to predict and control how most people will see and react to a photo based on how it is composed and lit. My intention was for the viewer to first be drawn to the pier area first by its brightness and where it is located in the frame, then notice the spider web over to the side in the darker area. The spider web becomes a secondary "reward" for looking at the photo and a delayed "punchline" for the story the photo is trying to tell; that fishing requires the same kind of diligence and patience as building a spider web.

The photo of the outboard motors was similar. You notice them right away but don't see the whole message until you notice the spider webs which provide a clue they have been there for awhiile. Eventually your eye wanders down into the shadows where you see why they have been there for awhile - no prop. So what makes this photo of ordinary objects more interesting isn't so much the lighting, but the fact that the story the photo tells unwinds itself slowly. The eye is lead by contrast and tone from one area of interest that adds to the story to another so the viewer stays engaged and interested and not distracted away.

The shot of the Heron on the roof has two equal centers of interest, bird and man, and my intent was for the viewer to ping-pong back and forth between them and not get distracted by anything else. So I contrasted the dark bird against the brighter sky and kept the area around the man bright, toning down everything else so it just faded into the backgound and wasn't noticed. Most of that manipulaition was done in Photoshop.

The photos of the flowers are more like the one-line joke; you see the focal point and don't wander off of it because the background foliage is toned down and made less interesting.

it's not really that difficult to manipulate the photos the way I do. My usual method is to duplicate the base background layer twice and set one dupe layer to "Screen" and the other to "Multiply" then add black masks to both. I've got a pre-defined "action" in Photoshop which does that part. Then I just erase the mask of the multiply layer to darken areas and erase the mask on the screen layer to lighten areas. When its how I want it to look I flatten the layers. I can illustrate this with some screen shots there are any Photoshop users on the list.

Chuck

[Kansas Fly Fisher]

Chuck

First - excellent pictures, I've often wished I could make my pictures look that good. Second - GREAT article. With some practice I think I could improve my pictures. Not quite to the point of yours, but better than they are.

I'm a photoshop user so any hints would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

John

[Gary Lange]

I think I need to read my Paint Shop Pro 9 User Guide more closely. I spent many days wandering the Forest Preserves of Illinois a few years back taking photo's of the Wildlife I found. I really enjoyed that time spent wandering the woods with just me and that Camera. My first was a Canon AE1 Program and I still have it and it takes great pictures to this day. I am sure that we will learn much from you and I have your tutorial in my bookmarks so I can read them often. Thank you for being here and for sharing your knowledge with us.

[Rolan Duffield]

Chuck:

These are very pleasing pictures. Thanks for posting them and including your analysis. We need more pictures of wildlife and good scenics for this site.

Keep up the good work.

Rolan

[Chuck Gardner]

I'm a photoshop user so any hints would be greatly appreciated.

I've created a new PDF tutorial which shows the basic workflow I use for editing my images in PS 7 using this example shown below in the before and after editing versions:

Using individual channels in Levels to correct contrast and white balance at the same time

Selective tonal corrections using masked duplicate screen and multiply layers

Unsharp RGB masking using the Luminance channel via Fade

It's a bit more advanced that you'll find in most how-to books but I illustrate all the steps and it is actually much simpler to do than it is to explain it. It is at http://super.nova.org/DPR/Technique/PostProcessing.pdf Warning: It is an 11 page color PDF which is 4.6 MB in size.

I've got other tutorials on how digital exposure and color management work and lots of other stuff on my web site. Just scroll down to the table of contents. http://super.nova.org/DPR/

Chuck

[Kansas Fly Fisher]

Thanks for the PDF file! I've downloaded it and will study it at work tomorrow. Sunday's are historically a slower day for us in EMS so hopefully I'll have a few hours down time to play with some of my photos and your guide. I've also bookmarked your tutorial page. Thanks again for the advice and I hope you don't mind the multitude of questions that will follow.

John