You will find helpful hints, experiences, tips and tricks as well as location and site reviews of some of the best photographic locations on the Gulf Coast of Florida and from time to time other special locations of interest.
You can find my photography in several places online Here as well as HERE
You may ask, why in the world would I name a blog "Life at 400mm"? Those who know me understand this as I am 90% of the time photographing at 400mm. I seem to see the world in small sections and isolation of events and behaviors so 400mm works great for me, I will take that lens off an shoot wide angle landscapes or low light candid shots and even move to a 70-300 to walk around the streets. But the 100-400L is the main tool on the end of my Canon 40D (which has over 300,000 shutter releases on it).
I am not huge on post processing a photo, but will play around from time to time with artistic license to create an image, but most of what you will see is not photoshopped. I enjoy getting up hours before dawn, traveling out to our parks and preserves to arrive at the right spot way before the first crack of dawn, watch the colors in the sky erupt and the wildlife wake up and to catch that magic light that only happens that early in the morning. Its MAGIC out there that early in the mornings.
Enough for a first post, look for more posts about the same time I am publishing articles for the Examiner.
Here is a sunrise to start the Blog,
What a cool shot, Steve! Looking forward to your tips and thoughts on photography.
ReplyDeleteThanks Tim,, its going to start slow and in conjunction with two other projects, so stay tuned.
ReplyDeleteHow do you expect to stay competitive with all of the thousands of wildlife photographers if you don't dabble in post processing? Seems to me that you should reconsider, or go back to shooting film. Just a thought.
ReplyDeletethe link to your website does not work because it has a comma instead of a period.
ReplyDeleteCynthia, Interesting point about post processing. Normally I am not one who likes all the photoshop tricks done to wildlife photos, meaning the heavy use of merging several photos into one scene or heavy manipulation might be a better way of putting it. Just like for many of the contests out there, they do not allow major edits in post for wildlife (you can do minor sharpening, adjustments for contrast and color as well as a crop and that is about it), when they do allow heavy editing, they usually put it in some digitally altered category. I know some people have more personal enjoyment from editing and manipulating than from trying to get the shot perfect in the camera. That is fine for them, I personally like the challenge of finding that location with clean backgrounds, finding the perfect light and sky, then just do the minor tweeks. I spent hours upon hours in the darkroom with film, doing much more manipulation in those days with masking and dodging, burning and using filters as well as effects such as solarization. Film is actually more time consuming and more about lab and darkroom adjust to me than digital. Thanks also for the tip on correcting the link its should be working fine now.
ReplyDeleteThank you for clarifying your preferences for post processing. I've seen you post on different media about your dislike for post processing and it always confused me and left me wondering why you would feel that way. I agree, there is a place and a time for creative post processing, but feel one needs to be proficient at minor edits in order to put forward the best product . The digital world is just that, digital, and to say that you don't do any post processing is really self defeating. I'm glad you clarified that. I also agree about the importance of getting it right in the camera, choosing the best lighting and finding the best locations. To be compete in a professional forum one must excel at all the elements, or else someone else will. Thank you for letting me speak my mind. I'm thrilled to see that you have started a blog. I'll look forward to it.
ReplyDeleteSorry you haven't kept up with this blog. I would have loved to follow your experiences and hear your insights, Steve.
ReplyDelete