Wildlife Photography across the Water: manipulation.photoshop.

Friday, 1 April 2011

The Camera never lies

Well thats what they used to say but in these days of digital cameras and Photoshop nothing could be further from the truth, My friend David Newton did a blog yesterday on his own personal thoughts of image manipulation and in wildlife in general, Now i have to say that i am very old school and also not very good at fiddling around with my images, The most i will go to apart from the normal levels,saturation and curves is to remove a small twig or blade of grass that may be distracting, How far do you go? well i guess that entirely up to you, Forums are now full of 'clean' images and if you put one up with branches or so in the background then somebody is bound to comment that these should be removed as they are distracting, I shot some cracking eagle images when i was in Japan and by using a long prime you get what you get and i had some had wing-tips etc clipped, My favourite Eagle image had a very small amount clipped so the other day as i needed to print it large i went onto you tube and found a video of how to add wing tips, I did this and it printed very nicely, Now does this smack of hypocrisy? well i don't think so, the wing-tip was there but i just didn't/couldn't frame it properly what i hadn't done was to remove a tree or anything from the image so in such the scene was as it was at the time, I personally do not mind a small amount of tiding up and maybe there should be some guide lines to set the 'rules' on what is a photograph and what is a manipulated image-both will sell but one is the truth and one isnt, That is the reason why competitions ask for a RAW file to make sure that the images is as true to life as the time that it was taken, I think that is kind of sad that people coming into the trade/hobby see these heavily photo shopped images on the web and feel that its the norm and will emulate them-In the days of slide film what you shot was what you got ,just my thoughts-what are yours?

Before

After

The after image still needs some tidying up in the sky colour at the top (left) but gives you the idea

Dave

Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.