Perspective

If there is one key that I could give young photographers it is to change your perspective.  We all see the world from eye level 95% of the time.  This perspective is so ubiquitous that we are instantly drawn to images that change the point of view.  I laid down on my stomach to take this photograph and with that simple step changed a picture of some pretty flowers into something interesting.  We look at the stems as they emerge from the dirt and we can almost feel them pushing upwards.  Get high, get low, do what it takes to change your perspective in interesting ways.  The other concern I had was the very busy background so I stopped down to f/2.8 and got back far enough that I could shoot it at 200mm.  This longer focal length emphasizes and strengthens the effect of the shallow depth of field, turning the distracting background into a blurry field of dark tones.  When I took the photo I was thinking black and white because the the brilliant white petals but little did I realize how converting to B&W in Nik Silver Efex Pro would give the flowers a glow as if lit from within.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

Bees In Flight

As I explained in my last post I was working hard to catch bees in an interesting pose in the flowers when I decided to set a more difficult challenge for myself.  I wanted to see if I could catch a bee in flight.  I decided to start with them on the flowers because then I would have a reference point to lock my focus on.  The problem is that bees take off really quickly and if you are going to get a picture where you can see any detail you have to get really close so they fly out of frame very quickly.  There were no bees at all in my first 10 pictures because they had flown out of frame before I could react and press the button.  I began to watch them more closely and noticed that they would generally rub their front legs together in a particular way before they took off.  This little warning combined with the realization that I would have to frame the shot a little wider and depend partially on cropping to get a closeup shot meant that I got some decent shots.  It was still really difficult to keep the bees in focus because they never flew straight up from the flower so they were often flying out of the plain of focus.  I tried to deal with this by stopping down my aperture and it helped but the bees are still not really sharp.  The other thing that I really like about this photograph, as opposed to the other two below is the fact that there is such a strong sense of place.  The background, while blurred enough to not be distracting, helps us understand where we are and makes the bee seem bigger. 

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

The Bee spots me as he comes in for a landing.

Bees lifting off from a flower.

To Look A Bee In The Eye

Sometimes being a good photographer is just being open to the possibility of a photograph.  I was out wandering around one day, just exploring wonderful Vancouver Island and I had taken my camera with me.  I stumbled on to a beautiful spot called Moorecroft Regional Park that has a great bench sitting on a spit of land with a bay on either side and the Georgia Straight out in front of you.  It was so peaceful and beautiful, the sun was just warm enough to make the breeze a wonderful cool counterpoint and I noticed that there where bees everywhere harvesting food from the yellow flowers all around me.  When you are interested in doing macro photography many times a small point and shoot will do a wonderful job.  The small lens and small sensor combine to give a very short minimum focusing distance.  My Fuji X10 is always with me in my purse so I pulled it out and began to try and get really close.  The challenge here is to get close enough that you can get the bee to fill the frame and then to keep things in focus.  When you are this close even very small movements of the camera can throw your subject out of focus.  So I would lock focus on the flower, wait for the bee to do something interesting, try and hold very still, then press the shutter.  I did get stung once.  If you are struggling with focus you can shut down your aperture, giving you a deeper field of focus but I really wanted the other flowers in the background to blur out so that they wouldn’t be distracting.  The shot above is my favourite but I did get a couple of other interesting ones below.

-Russell Berg

www.seeingberg.com

In my next post I will discuss some of the challenges of photographing bees in flight.

I especially liked the dynamic background that I had for this macro shot.

A more traditional macro insect shot.

Yellow Sunshine

Across Departure Bay from my house is a small island called Newcastle Island.  One summer day I paddled across the bay to wander around with my camera.  I had been focusing on trying to photograph birds but eventually I turned around and noticed a lily blooming in the sunlight.  I took some pictures but noticed that if I got a little lower I could put the cattails, which were also catching the sunlight into a very pleasant background blur.  Together, the crisp yellow flower and the out of focus form of the cattails in the background really strengthen the image.  I really wish that I had gotten rid of the foreground foliage, I feel it really weakens the image.

-Russell Berg

Canon EOS 7D EF-S 70-300 at 300mm f/5.6 1/500 ISO 160 −1 ev

The blur in the background is produced by these molting, (not sure if that’s the correct term), cattails.  In some ways I like this image better.  It doesn’t have the strong focal point of the image above but the sunlight in the disintegrating felt provides a strong counterpoint to the dark green firs in the background and the light green of the grasses below makes an interesting 3 colour band.

Flowers In The Mist

A dreamy purple flower in the morning mist. Canon EOS XSi EF 70-300mm at 300mm f/5.6 1/350 ISO 800 −1ev

I found this flower after wandering around the edges of a prairie slough on an early summer morning.  I caught a glimpse of it through the mass of green reeds and grasses.  I couldn’t get very close to it without getting wet but I was drawn by the contrast in colour and texture.  Everything was very soft. And the droplets of dew accentuated that.  I pulled out my telephoto zoom to pull the flower in close and I noticed the contrasting texture of the hair on the stems of the plant.  Normally I don’t like to have something obstructing my view of the main subject but I feel as though the out of focus stem of grass in the foreground adds to the sense of crowding and compression that was a part of the live scene.  Normally I don’t play much with filters or heavy post processing effects but in this case I applied some effects from Nik Colour Efex Pro and I was quite happy with the result.  

-Russell Berg

The same image after processing. Canon EOS XSi EF 70-300mm at 300mm f/5.6 1/350 ISO 800 −1ev