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BIRDS AS ART ON-LINE Bulletin #87
September 8, 2002
BOSTON, MASS: BIRDS AS
ART PHOTOGRAPHY WEEKEND
TWO NEW PHOTO WEEKENDS SCHEDULED FOR 2003!
COMING SOON!
HELP WITH ATLANTA PHOTOGRAPHY WEEKEND REQUESTED
JUST LUCKY?
BOSTON, MASS: BIRDS AS ART
PHOTOGRAPHY WEEKEND
Boston was a
huge success. We had more than 75 folks on Saturday and everyone
went home thrilled. We had lots of great door prizes thanks to the
generosity of Fuji Film USA, Hunt's Photo, Chelsea Professional
Color Lab, Wimberley Design, and others. The In-The-Field Workshops
were somewhat of a challenge but as one who feels that he could
teach a good field workshop in an empty mop closet, I felt that
Parker River NWR on Plum Island provided a wealth of natural history
subjects and even a few birds <smile>
While scouting I
noted a small mud flat, maybe ten yards long, below the diked road
at Stage Island Pool. Thanks to the kindness of ranger/biologist
Steve Haydock and refuge manager Janet Kennedy, I was able to secure
a permit that allowed six of us at a time to descend to the flat for
the propose of photographing a variety of shorebirds at point blank
range. As a thank you, I shall be sending a set of complimentary
slides to the refuge for use in their educational slide programs and
brochures. It was wonderful to find that the refuge staff at Parker
River was more than willing to work with visiting photographers.
We did lots of
patterns in nature and macro work and I shall share a bit of that
imagery with you in a future Bulletin when I return from Costa Rica
late this month. While photographing barnacle patterns I found one
large barnacle that looked like a Bald Eagle staring down the lens
barrel! We used a large gold reflector to illuminate the shaded
barnacles and they sure looked beautiful in the viewfinder! Special
thanks go to Canon Pro Markets Rep Barbara Ellison who showed up
with a huge war chest that included the 300, 400, 500, and 600mm IS
lenses and a ton of knowledge that she graciously shared with all
the participants. Special thanks also to Ben Kaplan of the Boston
Camera Club who made this event happen, and to Paul D. Parisi of the
Merrimack Valley Camera Club who helped in more ways than I can
count. He was so wonderful that I threatened to hire him as my
personal valet!
Paul is a
beginning bird photographer. Here is an image he made on the I-T-F
Workshop with the Canon 400mm DO lens, a 1.4X TC, and the Canon EOS
1D.
Herring Gull Screaming. Image Copyright 2002 Paul D.
Parisi All Rights Reserved
I received many
complimentary e-mails on the Boston gig and would like to share a
very special one here with you:
Hi
Arthur,
I just had to write ... I attended your seminar today in Boston -
what an eye opening and inspiring experience! Oh how I wish I could
have attended the In-The-Field Workshop. Your seminar is BY FAR
the best I have ever attended ... I truly believe it's the teacher
in you that made it so great, not to mention the obvious love and
devotion to your subject matter. Your enthusiasm shined today
(despite your being awake at 2:09am that morning!). I belong to a
local photo club, Stony Brook here in Norfolk, MA. We have some
very talented photographers and believe me, I will be singing your
praises loud and often at the first meeting of this new year-- this
coming Thursday. Thank you again for a wonderful day, some
outstanding teaching, some wonderful and often breath-taking photos,
lots of inspiration, and of course, the great books - I bought both
The Art of Bird Photography and the Bird Photography Pure and
Simple, as well as the Pocket Guide to Evaluative Metering. I
am pumped to get out and photograph some birds!
sincerely,
Gerry Canelli
TWO NEW BAA NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY WEEKENDS SCHEDULED FOR 2003!
Here, for the first time, I am announcing two newly scheduled
BIRDS AS ART/Art of Nature Photography Weekends.
Each will feature the acclaimed, full day, How-To Seminar, "The Art
of Nature Photography; It Ain't Just Birds," and one or more
In-The-Field Workshops. The Seminar is continuously updated with
new images and new information, so if you've already attended one,
you ain't seen nothing yet! Each weekend is generously sponsored by
Canon USA and a Canon Pro Markets Rep will be present for all the
festivities. Though this is an informal announcement and these
events are not yet posted on the web site, you may register
now as the few ITF-Workshop slots will fill almost
immediately. Please make your check out to "Arthur Morris"
not to "BIRDS AS ART." Thanks. Checks should be mailed to
PO Box 7245, Indian Lake Estates, FL 33855. Please include your
home address, home and work phone numbers, and most
importantly, your e-mail address. You are invited to use
Paypal.com. Here goes:
San Diego, California. On
Saturday, January 4, 2003 "The Art of Nature
Photography; It Ain't Just Birds," will be presented at the Otto
Center at the San Diego Zoo from 9am till 4:30 pm. This event will
be sponsored also by the San Diego Sierra Club Photography Section.
The cost of the seminar is $75 ($65 for Sierra Club Photography
Section members). There will be two separate In-The Field
Workshops: Sunday, January 5, 2003, and Monday, January 6, 2003.
The fee for the I-T-F-Workshops is $250 (Limit 8 photographers.)
Note: you must be signed up for the Saturday Seminar to
attend the I-T-F Workshop, and, at present, you may sign up for only
one of the I-T-F Workshops. There is a previously
scheduled San Diego IPT January 8-12, 2003. See the web site for
details.
Queens, New York. On
Sunday, August 24, 2003 "The Art
of Nature Photography; It Ain't Just Birds," will be presented at
the Ramada Adria Conference Center in Bayside, NY. The cost of the
seminar is $75. There will be an In-The Field Workshop on
Monday August 25, 2003. The fee for the I-T-F-Workshops is $225
(Limit 10 photographers.) Note: you must be signed up for
the Sunday Seminar to attend the I-T-F Workshop. I am
also announcing here for the first time a Jamaica Bay Wildlife
Refuge Shorebird IPT August 27-29, 2003. (3-day, $829). Though
this IPT is not yet posted on the web site, you may register by
sending a $200 deposit (as above). As many folks have been
clamoring for me to do another IPT at JBWR, my "soul place," this
one will likely fill quickly.
COMING SOON
Tentatively scheduled
BIRDS AS ART/Art of Nature Photography Weekends
include April 5-7, 2003 in Baton Rouge, LA and July 12-14, 2003 in
Chicago, Illinois. If you would like to explore the possibility of
having a BIRDS AS ART/Art of Nature Photography Weekend
in your major city, please get in touch via e-mail. Having
access to some good nature photography locations, and having
a sponsoring group or club, especially those with access to a
suitable auditorium or other venue, are huge pluses.
HELP WITH ATLANTA PHOTOGRAPHY WEEKEND REQUESTED
I would like to
schedule a BIRDS AS ART/Art of Nature Photography Weekend
in Atlanta, Georgia in the fall of 2003. Anyone involved with local
photography or natural history groups or with knowledge of good
locations for nature photography in the Atlanta area are urged to
contact me via e-mail.
JUST LUCKY
Great Blue Heron Starburst. Image Copyright 2002 Arthur
Morris/BIRDS AS ART
This image was
made (incidentally, while teaching a BAA SW FLA IPT) with the Canon
100-400mm IS zoom lens (at about 200mm) and a Canon EOS 1v body
loaded with Provia F-100 pushed one stop. When I showed a 70mm
reproduction quality duplicate of this photograph to another
photographer at Magee Marsh in Ohio, he chirped, "You were lucky."
I told him that I was indeed lucky to have had the creative vision
needed to realize what was possible in a difficult situation. (I
had learned what was possible by experimenting previously.) I said
that I was lucky to have positioned myself so that the bird was
placed in the blinding highlights of the watery swath of a bright
4pm sun on a clear day, lucky to know that evaluative metering -2
stops would give me an exposure that I liked, lucky enough to
know that I needed to focus manually as AF cannot see into blinding
highlights, lucky enough to know that setting the lens to f/22 might
give the starburst effect, and that lastly, that I was lucky enough
to know that the only way to see the bird through the viewfinder to
focus was to depress the DOF preview button (while at f/22). (Note:
if you attempt to view the scene at the wide open aperture, you
might damage your eyes and the scene will be so bright that you
can't see anything at all; stopped down viewing darkens the whole
scene so that correct framing is possible.)
Actually, the
only luck involved was getting a starburst atop the bird's head!
Question:
How in the world can -2 stops be the correct exposure for this
image?
Answer:
If we were attempting to make an image like this (by pointing our
lens at the glaring highlights) with center-weighted average
metering, we would have to open up from 3-8 stops to keep the
super-bright highlights from stopping the lens way down (and making
the image much too dark). But with evaluative metering, it is a
totally different story. When photographing a white wall in full
sun, evaluative metering first takes a center-weighted (incoming)
meter reading. With 100 EI film this reading will generally be
1/4000 sec at f/5.6 for a white wall in full sun with your shadow
pointing at the bird, er, the wall. The person who programmed the
evaluative meter read John Shaw's first book and understood both
Sunny f/16 (for middle-tones) and Sunny f/22 (for brilliant whites
in the same light). This means simply that whatever the correct
exposure for a middle toned subject (grey card) in a given light,
the correct exposure for a brilliant white subject (in the same
light) is one stop less (i.e., darker).
With the Sunny
f/16 equivalent being 1/750 at f/5.6, the programmer, following
Sunny f/22, knows that the correct exposure for a brilliant white
subject in full sun must be 1/1500 at f/5.6. When the evaluative
meter gets an incoming reading or 1/4000 at f/5.6, it says, "white
wall alert, white wall alert!" It is programmed to open up 1 1/2
stops so that the image is made at 1/1500 at f/5.6. Your white wall
be a pleasing bright white (not gray) with good detail. (Most folks
simply do not realize that evaluative metering systems will give
excellent exposures for scenes that average brighter than a middle
tone in FULL SUN (but will give you underexposed dingy whites in
cloudy conditions). OK, you are now ready to understand the exposure
problem that you encounter when pointing your lens at brilliant
reflected highlights (as in the image above). Evaluative metering
has been programmed to believe that the brightest thing that exists
is a white wall on a sunny day. So when it gets an incredibly bright
incoming meter reading, something like 1/6000 at f/22 (I am just
making that up as an example), it attempts to open up to something
approaching the correct settings for a white wall (1/5000 at f/5.6)
Thus, the photographer needs to dial in -2 to -3 three stops of
underexposure (depending on the brightness of the glaring
highlights)to achieve the desired results (and to keep the meter
from overexposing the image).
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