What Sells?

Last time we got a call from a publisher, they were looking for photographs of "pretty places" for a National Park's calendar. This time, we got a call from National Park's Magazine. They were looking for images to illustrate an upcoming article on investments in water management in Everglades National Park. Here is the photo they selected:


The day we took this shot, we rose early, put on our water shoes, and followed Paul (naturalist, incredible photographer, and friend) into the Everglades. He warned us of sharp limestone beneath the surface of the water - and of Alligators, Cottonmouths, and Burmese Pythons... and he went barefoot.

We spent more than an hour wandering around in this area as the sun came up over the Mangroves, took a bunch of shots, and headed to breakfast. But it isn't the efforts behind the photo that sell it. It's not the hike, the lens, the camera system, or the dangerous animals that threaten to nibble on your toes out there. ;)

In this case it's the location - the heart of a park that is struggling to deal with problems ranging from water management to infestation by invasive species (remember the Pythons we mentioned?) to threatened and endangered species. The light helps - it's a pretty sunrise, and the well-controlled highlights and shadows make it pleasant to look at. But in the end, it's a portrait of this troubled and beautiful location... and that helps the publishers tell their story.

Learning to See: Creative Compositions: Part II

The first post in our Learning to See series explored the topic of Creative Compositions. Remember those tips we mentioned...?

• Find a new location to shoot that icon
• Experiment with different zoom lenses
• Change elevation of your camera
• Get up close to focus on textures and patterns rather then location
• Use reflections if available
• Place a human or wildlife element in the photograph

Here are a few examples to illustrate the point.
For the first photo, Varina shot directly into the sun with a Canon's 135mm f/2.0 L-series lens. You're looking at Everglades National Park. By using a 135mm lens on 1.6x camera, Varina was able to fill the frame with the few low hanging clouds on the horizon. It's not a typical shot from that location - though you'll see those famous back-lit spider webs in the foreground if you look carefully.

In the next two examples, Jay used human or wildlife elements as foreground points of interest.

And for this last shot, Varina used macro lens to capture this tiny leaf against patterned sandstone. The shot was taken near the Hanging Gardens in Page, Arizona - since the light wasn't right for broad landscapes, she focused on details and patterns instead.

Pine Glades Lake - Florida

Things have been pretty crazy this week. We are being approached for photos more regularly this year than ever before, and sometimes it's tough to keep up with the demand. I'm not complaining... it's a great situation for us... but it sure keeps me busy. We got an email from National Geographic Books this week. They're looking for images for their 2010 calendar, and wanted us to prepare some of our favorites for review. So I spent some time putting together a macro that will automatically re-size, sharpen, and save the files I need. Once the macro is done, I should be able to put together a folder of appropriate images pretty quickly.

This is the image I've been using to test my macro. Pine Glades Lake in the Everglades. I loved this location - and so did the spiders. :)