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6 Things You Must Do If You Want To HaveThe Secret To Catching More Trout
It has always been my private conviction that any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses has it coming. ~John Steinbeck 1. How Fish Think When you hunt for deer, and any other animal for that matter, there are some set rules...
Container Gardening Indoors and Outdoors
For years people have been gardening in containers, mostly because they lacked space. For some it was because they lived in climates that wouldn’t allow them to grow year round. Container gardens afford you the option of planting outside until...
North Face Tents
What is North Face?
The North Face is an outdoor product manufacturing company,
specializing in products like jackets, tents, fleece wear,
luggage, and shoes started by Douglas Tompkins in 1966. Their
clothing and equipment lines are...
Raising The Bar For Anglers Who Want Quality Equipment At A Reasonable Price - The Garmin 160 Fish Finder
The Garmin 160 Fish Finder has some big advantages over the competition. First, the exclusive See-Thru™ technology allows the Fishfinder 160 to hear both weak and strong signals simultaneously, giving it tremendous dynamic range. The result is a...
The Journal of a Gardener in Tuscany - June 2004
The Journal of a Gardener in Tuscany June 23rd 2004 The wild flowers are dying back already, just days after their fantastic display peaked. The grass is yellowing and in a week, maybe less, all the green lush flowers will be a distant memory. ...
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Flower Pictures - A Mild Obsession #2
So a gorgeous yellow daisy mesmerises me, swaying elegantly in the light afternoon breeze, bathed in the warm light. Mmmm...emotions gently bubble to the surface, excitement foremost, followed by the deep satisfaction that I've been able to make time to return to this spot to revisit my yellow daisy. I've already shot her once...but...now another chance to create another feel, another image worthy of my wall.
As before I dispense with my tripod. An odd decision? Perhaps... but here's my thinking on the subject. Firstly this is a decision which individual photographers need to make for themselves and secondly, and please understand this clearly, there are no rights or wrongs when the intent is artistic creation.
A tripod slows the process down (a good thing), it allows for greater reflection on composition and it creates the freedom necessary to style the shot without losing the angle of view one has chosen. It also has the added benefit of helping to steady the camera considerably so that camera shake is avoided. Actually in practise that bonus can rapidly become nullified - add a little spring zephyr to the mix and suddenly movement becomes an artistic must have, with or without the tripod!
Easing swiftly on to my preference...
Shooting fashion was my world for a number of years and even though I used a tripod a lot in the studio, more often than not on location I preferred to hand hold my monster of a medium format camera (GX680). Luckily it has an autowind so cranking to the next frame wasn't a bore, but the freedom to be able to approach all shots by circling the subject to see how the world looked from that perspective was hugely stimulating. Good stuff! And oddly now that I'm shooting my mostly inanimate gorgeous yellow daisy and the like, I feel incredibly fettered when using a tripod. Don't ever let anyone dictate that there is only one proper way (ironically almost always their way - strange...). Discipline is in your approach and consistency of approach rather than just the tools.
There is another factor in the mix - DIGITAL...A little rant last time, a repeat now...Freedom! To me digital spells freedom - access, creativity, lack of stress about mundane matters like money i.e. cost per frame "wasted". If you like to shoot a lot of each view as I do, this would get prohibitive real quick on film. I urge you as a budding or even a relatively experienced photographer to shoot lots - life is too short to stuff a mushroom (if you get that you get my point), and shoot at the highest res possible. I cringe at sad sack stories of the one that got away.
Be disciplined, shoot smart. Make yourself a checklist,
mental or written, of things to check and use it every time you go out to shoot. It's the little things...you try explaining to a client that you forgot the charged batteries at the studio or even worse, a whispered aside to assistant "Herm where's the film?" And then even worse the reply "I thought you packed it...." Checklists rule okay!
So to the gorgeous yellow number...Another decision, another choice. Shoot the natural view or create an instant outdoor studio background with flags, fills and scrim. Me, I like the control of creating my own environment as far as possible. I like the deep orange fuzzy card in the background with my model languishing, exotically garbed in yellow organza, in the foreground. Daisy perfection!
Now for some forward planning...don't ever restrict your ability to shoot by not planning ahead. Take a few extras with you...
I grabbed a series of different colored cards before I left, A4 sheets as the work is close and my subjects mostly small, and I cut a slit down the vertical centre line to 1/3 into the page, then carved out a small round hole (a keyhole in effect),a perfect fit around the stem of most flowers, without doing any real damage. Don't worry about the slit, Photoshop will clean that up! For the purists out there sorry if that's cheating in your book, but hey if you've got it, use it, is my feeling.
I also stuck a bit of foil, white card and black card in for good measure. A tiny mobile studio - flag and fill! Do it properly if you're going to do it at all. The foil can be well used to create pattern or glitter on an otherwise dull surface, the white card to fill in the shadow areas and the black card to define edges on white/light subjects. On really bright, sunny days it's worth adding a sheet of scrim to the mix to soften the light over the subject. Diffuse light created by a cloudy day or by a decent piece of scrim is so much easier to work with - color saturation is deep and satisfying without huge loss in shadows or highlights. Be prepared!
BUT...
Do not rule out the harsh directness of full-on sun. It can be awesome to work in direct sun - huge drama, brilliant glitter. Give yourself a break - luxuriate in choice. Never loose site of the point...GET THE SHOT...the shot that's beautiful enough to grace the wall...any wall!
See the beauty!
Copyright 2005 Patrick Heathcock About the Author
Sometime commercial photographer London, fulltime flower art photographer and web designer living in the southern semisphere, soaking up the sun. Visit http://www.aflowergallery.com to view the yellow daisy and more!
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Appalachian Mountain Club – Outdoor Recreation, Education ... |
Members from Maine to Virginia participate in hiking, paddling, skiing, and other outdoor activities. Includes links to lodging destinations, local chapters ... |
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Outdoors in the Yahoo! Directory |
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Adventure Travel and Outdoor Recreation - GORP.com |
Resource for outdoor sports, adventure, and travel. Includes destination, activity, and gear directories plus news, articles, and forums. |
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Outdoors - UK Camping Equipment Supplier |
Shops operated by the Scout Association. Site includes catalogue, locations of stores and online shopping. |
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ESPN Outdoors - Outdoors Home |
The latest in Outdoors news and information, all at ESPN.com. |
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Outdoors Network - Fishing, Fly Fishing, Hunting, Lefty Kreh, BASS |
Fishing , Fly Fishing, Hunting , Lefty Kreh, BASS and more, from Outdoors Network - Bringing the Outdoors Indoors. |
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Great Outdoors |
Experience the outdoors online -- hiking, skiing, camping, and mountain biking with gear reviews and adventure profiles. |
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Open Directory - Recreation: Outdoors |
Recreation: Travel: Specialty Travel: Adventure and Sports (237); Science: Environment (6754); Shopping: Recreation: Outdoors (2491); Society: Gay, Lesbian, ... |
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MaineToday.com | Outdoors |
OUTDOOR NEWS. Trail backers back to work raising money The 55-mile Eastern Trail pedestrian and bicycle ... Seen Outdoors Were you seen in Maine, today? ... |
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Outdoors |
Los Angeles Times Travel Guide - Tips, discounts and world destinations from the Los Angeles Times travel section. |
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SFGate: Sports: Outdoors |
Once mighty wool makes comeback in outdoor gear (11/23). MAIN EVENTS: Discover fabulous fungus, learn to hunt and hear stories of the great outdoors (11/30) ... |
www.sfgate.com |
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Detroit News Online | Outdoors |
Outdoors. Deer numbers are up. 17-point buck and numerous 200-pounders mark ... Outdoors. Deer hunt unites families. Old and young, as well as male and ... |
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Google Directory - Recreation > Outdoors |
Science > Environment (7762) Shopping > Recreation > Outdoors (2778) Society > Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual > Recreation > Outdoors (50) ... |
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St. Petersburg Times Online: Outdoors |
The weather is forecast to become more favorable for fishing and being outdoors in general. Go to article · Root for cleaner water to find kings ... |
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Sports : Outdoors -- Philadelphia Inquirer |
OUTDOORS LINKS. Outdoors Calendar Listing of clubs and activities in the area Resources How to get listed; whom to contact. RECENT STORIES ... |
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Welcome to Cotswold Outdoor Ltd - outdoor & travel clothing ... |
Find travel and active wear, camping and climbing equipment, rucksacks, accessories, and sleeping bags. |
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Outdoors: South Florida Sun-Sentinel |
South Florida's breaking news site, with news, sports and information updated constantly throughout the day. |
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Outdoor Clothing - Rock Climbing Equipment - Camping Gear - Hiking ... |
UK based outdoor clothing retailer. Stock includes rock climbing equipment, camping gear, stoves, tents hiking boots, waterproofs, fleeces, ht and gloves. |
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Outdoors T-Shirts and Gifts : CafePress.com : Shop Over 35 Million ... |
CafePress has over 9660 unique , outdoors designs on more than 98600 T-Shirts and Gifts. Narrow your search with topics like funny outdoors, or nature, ... |
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Great outdoors: Hunting, fishing, biking and running news ... |
Top Outdoors Stories. Strong mast crop affects hunters now, next year ... Bill Cochran's Outdoors. You are never more alive than when a predator ... |
www.roanoke.com |
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