Why I'm a Wildlife Photographer

[deetheturk]

Wonderful series Dan, thank's for sharing your passion with us

David

[Suzan J]

I must also chime in to express what an awesome series this is. The narrative describing the emotion that goes along with photographing these amazing creatures really hits a nerve. Anytime I see an eagle, a bear, a deer, or any other native species, I literally lose my breath for a moment. I only wish I could capture such images as well as Dan does.

[bnnrcn]

Great series and narration

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'd hoped to get across the feeling of the place/time. Based on the comments it seems to have worked. It's pretty special to me any opportunity that I get to share time and space in reasonably intimate contact with critters. I suppose that over the years I've been fortunate in that regard. I have a bunch of moose behavioral shots to share when I get a few minutes to generate the narrative to go along with them. For many of them the context makes the difference between shots at bad angles on a couple of moose versus an interesting capture.

[terrib]

Dan, thank you for sharing both your photos and your thoughts. They touch me on many levels. I often become emotional while in the field from the sheer wonder of what is around me. People say to me all the time "you have so much patience". Maybe, but I don't find it difficult to sit and watch and wait. It's also why I continually look for places where I feel safe to be remote and alone. Because I don't enjoy standing in a crowd of other photographers wondering what impact we are all having on our subjects. You are very lucky to have access to these type places and I'm so glad you share your world with us. And you portray it so well!

Love all the shots but the last one is special for me.

[Kyle]

Amazing photos Dan. The commentary was great, really adds contexts to the photos.

The other day during lunch work someone mentioned Alaska and asked "Why would anyone want to go there?". I said I would. I'll just show them your photos next time it comes up. They really show how beautiful Alaska is.

[MarvinTheSpartan]

These are beautiful pictures

[Dave Humphries]

Great series and supporting text Dan,

Thanks for sharing.

I initially thought I might suggest that a couple, especially #3, were perhaps a little over exposed, but I know you never do anything without a reason, so I looked harder.

Sure enough; when I properly studied them, I noticed the bright ones seem to be where the sun was actually shining - so, in comparison with the overcast lit ones (e.g. #2), I 'get' that this was most likely how it seemed to you and you are conveying that to us.

Then I looked at the red channel histograms (on #3 and #7) and suspect there may have been some clipping after all.

I therefore deduce that I might be correct on both counts, they were perhaps over-exposed (in one colour channel), but in PP you decided to leave them bright as that better matched your experience on the day. Or maybe the red histogram is just the result of PP brightening and the exposures were perfect.

What say you?


I do understand the gist of the thread, sadly it's been a couple of years since I have felt that 'connected' with any wildlife - other priorities have reduced my access to wildlife below the critical mass required to develop such an empathy.
I need to 'get out more'.

[TobyMac]

Awesome series! Really great shots all of them but something about Nr.4 really draws me to it especially. Love moose photos, hope I can one day venture to your side of the world to get some photos of them!

[Tom Barry]

This is one of the best series of wildlife photos I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot!

[NorthernFocus]

Thanks for all the comments, folks.

...I therefore deduce that I might be correct on both counts, they were perhaps over-exposed (in one colour channel), but in PP you decided to leave them bright as that better matched your experience on the day. Or maybe the red histogram is just the result of PP brightening and the exposures were perfect.

What say you? ...

I say... yes in PP I intend to keep the overall feel of the day i.e. overcast vs sunny, etc. However, I often intentionally clip the low end of the histogram but not the high end. Though for web posting if minor clipping occurs due to the sharpening/jpeg conversion on final export from LR I typically won't bother to go back and correct it. So I assumed maybe it was a conversion issue when you mentioned it. However, I found something disturbing.

I downloaded the picture as posted on CIC to compare it to the jpeg as exported on my HD. The histograms matched up pretty well in LR. So then it occurred to me that the various software may generate different histograms. So check this out:

LR5


ViewNX2


PSE11


Since I now do virtually all of my PP in LR5/PPS8, I'd like to understand this. Maybe some of the technophiles will chime in with help/explanations.

[Dave Humphries]

Since I now do virtually all of my PP in LR5/PPS8, I'd like to understand this. Maybe some of the technophiles will chime in with help/explanations.

Hmmm, ok, I'll bite - since I started this
oh boy, I knew I shoulda kept my trap shut

I'm not sure which image your histograms are showing us, the 3 shapes don't match #3 or #7, although they do match each other, but the first (from LR) appears to show no problem - or is this actually the "original image" before posting for comparison?

I tend to agree that the results of sharpening and jpg conversion might cause slight issues, but not this scale of 'difference' (I won't call it an 'error' since we don't understand it)

OK, I'll try to "think this out loud" from first principles, anyone please do query anything daft I say.

At the time the relative amplitudes of the colour channels for the digital image were 'frozen' into the jpg, the following 'invisible' factors were at play:
Colour-space (and perhaps a conversion to sRGB)

When viewing the CiC jpg in an editing program, it occurs to me that the Colourspace might again be relevant, especially in LR - as I recall, the jpgs had no EXIF data, not even a Colourspace, so assumptions will be made.

However, I would have expected Colourspace differences to affect the green more than red channel.

To be continued if anything else occurs to me - I need food!

Cheers, Dave

[wtlwdwgn]

Excellent series of the moose and locale Dan. I haven't had the opportunity to 'shoot' mine yet.

[NorthernFocus]

Dave, all three histograms are from the no.3 image as downloaded (save picture as) from the one that shows up in the lightbox on CIC. Though the histograms look exactly the same as the jpeg export created by LR so apparently no significant alterations when uploaded to CIC.

Interesting, no?

[Dave Humphries]

Yes, interesting.

For comparison, here is the FireFox Add-on Histogram I was using:



Also, just to lob another irrelevant thought into the pot; the picture has not actually been uploaded to CiC, it is merely direct linked from your own site (note the url in the screen grab).

Dunno about you, but I'm losing the plot here

Such graphical representations are no more than statistics - and we all know how reliable and trustworthy they are

[FlyingSquirrel]

As usual I will be the one to revive one of your older threads I found this to be really excellent, in many ways. As I started looking at the first few images, I began choosing "favorites" so I could comment on the one I liked the most. Soon, I realized that was a futile effort, given that they were all so wonderful! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, emotions, and views into your time with nature.

[Stagecoach]

+1 to Matt's difficulty choosing a favourite, they all have an equal appeal in their own right.

Great series seeing these guys going about their lives so naturally in their own environment.