My Thoughts on “Bright Ideas: You be the Photo Editor”

My Thoughts on “Bright Ideas: You be the Photo Editor”

It’s been a while since I posted “Bright Ideas: You be the Photo Editor.” Helen Longest-Saccone, the Editor-in-Chief of Nature Photographer magazine, has been busy up in Maine working on some new projects and just got back to me yesterday with her selects. I will share those with you at the end of this post. You will find the original post here. And you can view the Editor’s Lightbox here.

Do understand that I love each of the images in the lightbox; I never send anything out for consideration that I do not judge to be technically excellent and artistically pleasing. Here I present my picks for each category. If you would like to see the tech specs you can find them with each image in the lightbox in slideshow mode. They will be on the lower left and you will need to scroll down a bit to view them. Thanks a stack to all who tried their hand at making the selections.

To learn more about Nature Photographer magazine click here but do not expect to connect until the blizzard leaves Maine 🙂

My Picks

Below are my category picks each followed by a brief educational comment.

I remember moving the blind a bit every ten minutes so that the sun angle lined up perfectly with the left edge of the tiny man-made pond.

Here the sun was coming a shade from the right so I got in tight and used just a bit of flash.

With a bright sunny midday to contend with I used a Better Beamer on my flash and used full power: Manual Mode at 1:1 know that there was no way I could overexpose the shaded undersides of the bird. I was right! This very old digital image was created in January 2001 with the EOS-1D. Heck, it might have been 2002 if I had the date wrong on the camera….

This one was created at 10:31 am with a warming polarizer screwed onto the front of my 100-400 zoom lens and rotated to dark as possible. You can purchase the 77mm size here. You can learn lots more about creating pleasing blurs in “A Guide to Pleasing Blurs” by Denise Ippolito and yours truly.

Here the flower was backlit by the strong New Mexico sun. The background was a pile of dirt that was obviously in its own deep shade!

Linda Robbins, the Hummingbird Queen, kindly shaded this patch of flowers for me with her body as I photographed it with a 500mm lens and two extension tubes.

I was walking down the beach in bright sun with a group. I said, “I want to find a flat rock completely covered with barnacles. But the barnacles need to be on the shaded side of the rock. And it needs to be a big rock so I don’t have to get down on my knees on this rocky beach. When we find the perfect rock, I will use a gold reflector to light up the barnacles.” I did just what I said, set up the image with the 180 macro lens (and film!). I invited the group to check out my image by looking through the viewfinder. (There were no LCD screens on film cameras….) Well, the first person who checked out my image immediately commented, “You are SO lucky.” Man, you gotta love it.

Since working right down sun angle is the most valuable tip that I can give for those hoping to create pleasing images in bright sun, I used two image to illustrate the concept 🙂

Helen’s Picks

Below are Helen’s picks. She was not constrained by categories as you were 🙂

American Wigeon head portrait calling male, Bosque Del Apache NWR, San Antonio, NM.jpg
Roseate Spoonbill wing stretch, Alafia Banks, Tampa Bay, FL
Marine Iguana showing teeth, Punta Espinoza, Fernandina, Galapagos.jpg
Yellow-billed Kite-best, Ngorngoro Crater, Tanzania
Olive Baboon yawning, Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania
Ring-necked Duck, vertical, head w water drops, Phoenix AZ
Mew Gull on nest in shade, Kukak Bay, Katmai National Park, AK
Horned Puffin flared flight backlit, Duck Island, Lake Clark National Park, AK
Sunflower backlit vertical, Bosque Del Apache NWR San Antonio NM
Gentoo Penguin, vertical w bill open, Sea-Lion Island,Falkland Islands
Turkey-Vulture, vertical, Indian Lake Estates, FL

You can view Helen’s picks in the Editor’s Lightbox here.

Helen picked 11 images so that she would have some leeway when it comes time for the color layout. We only picked two of the same images. No problema there as I did say that I love all of them. I love the spoonbill wing stretch. And the iguana showing its teeth. Canon chose that one for an on line Photo District News advertorial. Not sure how I did not pick the Olive Baboon yawning; it was created on a hellaciously sunny and hot afternoons in a deep forest. An instant before I created this image one of the clients asked, “Why are we here?” I pushed the shutter button, showed him the image on the back of the camera, and said, “Here’s why.” He of course missed the image…..

I will see you all again soon. Thanks to the almost 100 folks who have already ordered their Lens Align Mark IIs from us and to those who commented favorably on the tutorial. A parting thought: after viewing the lightbox consider how blessed a life I have led….