LHG Creative Photography
Mandarin Duck
A wild (feral) mandarin duck on the lake at mallards pike in the forest of dean.I wasn't really expecting to see these guys out in the forest, I was really there to get forest scenes and take some "macro" shots with Saras and his family.
These little fellows have given me a lot of joy lately, not least by merely being calm enough to get close, and being their spectacular selves. Given their effort, I thought I'd match it by doing something that I hope does them justice, so that you can appreciate what I see in them. Now the basic problem is, my camera isnt really capable of the tonality I want to capture, it would just have been another badly contrasted duck with no richness of colour and some nasty light fringing, and a fairly indeterminate depth of field and fairly flat detail. For what I really want to do, thats probably 40k of camera and lenses, and since getting that much money together will happen sometime after my last grandchild on this earth has turned to dust, we turn to LDR techniques.
Normally i'm not into LDR or HDR animals , natural is best. You have a shot with elements you like, really wanted, but the tonality is awful, do you ditch it and send it directly to the recycle bin? Hell no! Fact is you got lucky one day, but it might not happen again for years, so in my book, make it work!
Spent hours on this one, trying all sorts of layers and blurs to get the light and feel right. I wanted something that was elusive like an oil painting in depths and yet felt so clear and strong you could almost reach out and grab the animal. If I got anywhere near that I'm happy.
Tonally of course, almost anything with white and black plumage in direct sun is a nightmare, so hopefully the processing here brings the best of the texture, the colour, and the extremes of contrast.
This is 4 combined LDR processes, several layers, including soft light and tonal gradients, about 20 different grades of sharpness and blurs, and some selective colour work. TBH after 2 hours of tinkering I can't remember what the hell I did, call it a picture of a thousand clicks. lol.
I think I have eventually pulled something out of the bag. Hope you like it, I do, but then I would, it suits my taste and i've been hammering at it for hours. It does for me what photos in books by durrel, attenborough, the WWF, time life etc did for me as a kid. If anyone remembers the 70's you'll remember it was a bit of a dour age and colour and form was brought to me through those books, looking back through the old books the sense of discovery is still there, but the images, as they were, brilliant for their time, superb in fact, but now jaded, colour faded, grainy not quite in focus. At the time though it didnt matter , we saw the animals in those pages shot so intuitively that using such things as imaginations and suspension of disbelief if you will, almost dreams, we brought them back to life in our minds, it was easy, because of great photographers making the best out of their equipment and shooting with descriptive talent enough to stimulate the brain even though conditions were difficult.. We felt like we were there.
Thats what I want to feel again, those images that fill the mind. Images that inspire. Maybe thats having it on a plate, but for each generation the goalposts move a little. Maybe its a photo, maybe its art, maybe its a memory filtered reality, maybe its overdescribing the obvious, I never really know where to place or how to describe images like this, but it does it for me.
At least I know the one thing it isnt, and thats a bluetoned, machine on auto settings representation of what I saw. Flickr is full of em, blue, grey, hazy, no consideration for DOF or colour and frankly, no matter how good the wildlife spot, they bore me. Most of the LDR's and HDR's out there don't make any concession to reality, they are nearly all overt. I want such techniques to add something, not to diminish. I don't want effect, I want description.
In this I can see every feather, every exquisite shape and colour, adjusted as my eyes see, from stark light to the sleepy mental haze of drifting into a reflection near water. Motion is implied , not blurred, which for me is tedious, and the animal hasnt descended into merely shapes, the pose is comfortably expected and the avoidance of full profile avoided because I don't like the form to descend into simple idolatry or cliche, it still has natural personality, the presence of life is important to me, and the light and colour I find very pleasing though i'm sure thats a matter of taste. I'm good with the water, brown is always difficult to work with but theres translucence at the top, a clarity, and below rich chocolate and terracotta browns, andf TBH thats about as good as you get from a muddy lake. A blue sunlit patch would have been a bit brighter, but its not always about that, and mandarins spend a lot of time in shade anyway, and besides where a wild animal is - is precisely what you get. Obviously a lot of people like almost everything to be very blue, but I'm a warm tones kind of guy.
Little by little I feel I'm getting there on what I want... which is good I suppose. Even if no-one else likes it. Therefore , imperfect and experimental as it is, this picture counts as one of my favourites.
Only one regret, lord of camera gods- give me more RESOLUTION, less GRAIN and less COLOUR DISTORTION!
lol.
Mandarin Duck
A wild (feral) mandarin duck on the lake at mallards pike in the forest of dean.I wasn't really expecting to see these guys out in the forest, I was really there to get forest scenes and take some "macro" shots with Saras and his family.
These little fellows have given me a lot of joy lately, not least by merely being calm enough to get close, and being their spectacular selves. Given their effort, I thought I'd match it by doing something that I hope does them justice, so that you can appreciate what I see in them. Now the basic problem is, my camera isnt really capable of the tonality I want to capture, it would just have been another badly contrasted duck with no richness of colour and some nasty light fringing, and a fairly indeterminate depth of field and fairly flat detail. For what I really want to do, thats probably 40k of camera and lenses, and since getting that much money together will happen sometime after my last grandchild on this earth has turned to dust, we turn to LDR techniques.
Normally i'm not into LDR or HDR animals , natural is best. You have a shot with elements you like, really wanted, but the tonality is awful, do you ditch it and send it directly to the recycle bin? Hell no! Fact is you got lucky one day, but it might not happen again for years, so in my book, make it work!
Spent hours on this one, trying all sorts of layers and blurs to get the light and feel right. I wanted something that was elusive like an oil painting in depths and yet felt so clear and strong you could almost reach out and grab the animal. If I got anywhere near that I'm happy.
Tonally of course, almost anything with white and black plumage in direct sun is a nightmare, so hopefully the processing here brings the best of the texture, the colour, and the extremes of contrast.
This is 4 combined LDR processes, several layers, including soft light and tonal gradients, about 20 different grades of sharpness and blurs, and some selective colour work. TBH after 2 hours of tinkering I can't remember what the hell I did, call it a picture of a thousand clicks. lol.
I think I have eventually pulled something out of the bag. Hope you like it, I do, but then I would, it suits my taste and i've been hammering at it for hours. It does for me what photos in books by durrel, attenborough, the WWF, time life etc did for me as a kid. If anyone remembers the 70's you'll remember it was a bit of a dour age and colour and form was brought to me through those books, looking back through the old books the sense of discovery is still there, but the images, as they were, brilliant for their time, superb in fact, but now jaded, colour faded, grainy not quite in focus. At the time though it didnt matter , we saw the animals in those pages shot so intuitively that using such things as imaginations and suspension of disbelief if you will, almost dreams, we brought them back to life in our minds, it was easy, because of great photographers making the best out of their equipment and shooting with descriptive talent enough to stimulate the brain even though conditions were difficult.. We felt like we were there.
Thats what I want to feel again, those images that fill the mind. Images that inspire. Maybe thats having it on a plate, but for each generation the goalposts move a little. Maybe its a photo, maybe its art, maybe its a memory filtered reality, maybe its overdescribing the obvious, I never really know where to place or how to describe images like this, but it does it for me.
At least I know the one thing it isnt, and thats a bluetoned, machine on auto settings representation of what I saw. Flickr is full of em, blue, grey, hazy, no consideration for DOF or colour and frankly, no matter how good the wildlife spot, they bore me. Most of the LDR's and HDR's out there don't make any concession to reality, they are nearly all overt. I want such techniques to add something, not to diminish. I don't want effect, I want description.
In this I can see every feather, every exquisite shape and colour, adjusted as my eyes see, from stark light to the sleepy mental haze of drifting into a reflection near water. Motion is implied , not blurred, which for me is tedious, and the animal hasnt descended into merely shapes, the pose is comfortably expected and the avoidance of full profile avoided because I don't like the form to descend into simple idolatry or cliche, it still has natural personality, the presence of life is important to me, and the light and colour I find very pleasing though i'm sure thats a matter of taste. I'm good with the water, brown is always difficult to work with but theres translucence at the top, a clarity, and below rich chocolate and terracotta browns, andf TBH thats about as good as you get from a muddy lake. A blue sunlit patch would have been a bit brighter, but its not always about that, and mandarins spend a lot of time in shade anyway, and besides where a wild animal is - is precisely what you get. Obviously a lot of people like almost everything to be very blue, but I'm a warm tones kind of guy.
Little by little I feel I'm getting there on what I want... which is good I suppose. Even if no-one else likes it. Therefore , imperfect and experimental as it is, this picture counts as one of my favourites.
Only one regret, lord of camera gods- give me more RESOLUTION, less GRAIN and less COLOUR DISTORTION!
lol.