Student Shot

[MNUser]

Here is one a student in my digital photography class took. She did the post editing in CS. It is not a bird but close.....

BEFORE:

AFTER:

[Dotch]

Nice comma!

[Steve Foss]

Here's one using a similar technique with Photoshop CS. Only color in the image is the wolf's eye.

[Tom Wilson]

SF,

Great shot there. Was that crop intentional? I would love to have been able to see the whole ear and some additional room on the right in front of his nose. It is a cool shot though as is. It appears as though He/She is lying down--did you get any other shots like that one where a larger crop could be seen. If so you should try it, because I think it would be gorgeous. Also, is this a wild wolf, or a partially wild wolf from the IWC?

Tom W

[Tom Wilson]

MNuser,

I love the bark on that tree--it sort of resembles butterfly wings. Just a thought, and I think it would be cool if you could get your student to try it...

Leave the whole photo in color to accentuate the tree and make the butterfly B&W. I know it seems backwards, but I saw something like that the other day on another site and it rocked. I have not figured out how to do this technique yet or I would try it on some of my butterfly pics. Congratulate him/her on a job well done.

Tom W

[Steve Foss]

Tom, that's the actual image, with no later cropping.

I composed it that way on purpose, because to eliminate part of the nose and ear is to push things that don't matter to my eye away from the viewer. So the viewer's eye goes to what I saw as more important in the image — the animal's eye and the amazing texture in the wolf's coat. I could even have removed more ear and nose through cropping in photoshop to heighten the effect. To have featured the whole wolf, including the legs and tail and all, would have been to further erode the effect I wanted, so I didn't even include them in the original composition through the lens.

Partly, my thinking on the composition is influenced by how many thousands and thousands of excellent wolf photos there are out there. A photographer often tries to combine what moves him or her with a slightly different take on the subject, something not run of the mill, and this image reflects my efforts to do that. The whole world knows what a wolf looks like. How many can look at an image and feel like they could run their fingers through the wooly insulating undercoat of the wolf's fur?

And that's the essence of the art, isn't it? Some are wholly unmoved by this shot. They want to see the whole figure of the wolf like they see in animal field guides or on postcards. To them, that is art. Others see something similar to what I do. To us, this is art. Neither is better than the other, or more "right" than the other. It's totally an individual thing.

The individual wolf is one of the Arctic subspecies of gray wolf from the IWC. I have shots of full-figure wolves from the IWC, but none I like so far as well as this one. And I won't sell action shots on the Web site of captive wolves (the IWC wolves are captive, and are bred in captivity as well, not captured from the wild), because my personal ethic makes me feel like that's cheating for a nature photographer. When I sell an animal shot on the site, people assume it's wild, and I don't want to destroy that trust. With this shot, which is not an action shot (It really is a portrait,) I don't feel like its appeal comes from whether the animal is wild or not. It's not a distinction everyone will understand or agree with. Some photographers wouldn't sell the portrait, either, while others would sell any image of a captive wolf and let folks assume it's wild. These may be fine distinctions for non-photographers, but we all tend to be particular about that in which we take pride.

[Tom Wilson]

SF,

I truly hope you didn't misunderstand what I was offering. As you stated, just like I see my photos, everyone sees their art differently. Your shot is awesome as is. I truly like it. I wasn't asking for a full body shot. Actually, I kind of agree with you--I think you could crop even further getting rid of 90% of the back of wolf and emphasizing its neck and head. It is cool that you can tell that he/she is looking behind him/herself, but as you said the emphasis is on the eye(as with 90% of all nature photos) I was only offering another photographer's perspective. I personally think a dog's (wolf's) ear position tells a lot about the dog's mood at the time. Example--Tell me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression from the photo that the wolf was laying down in front of a nice shady spot minding it's own business taking it easy, and it turned backwards to either address another more dominant wolf or to scratch an itch. There seems to be no agression in its facial expression.

My point over its nose was simply my own--I personally like some room on any side of a photo that my subject is looking out of. I sure hope my opinion wasn't taken the wrong way, I was just giving my hooray's for an awesome photo and another opinion for future thoughts.

Tom W

[Tom Wilson]

MNuser,

Here's a real quick example of kind of what I was thinking. By the way this is tough to do without a pen mouse and tablet.

I just thought something like this might look cool with the other photo.

[metro 1]

I see there is some interest in "Photoshop CS." here is a web site that has allot of ideas to play with.I have a hard time enhancing photos at home , not enough ram.

http://www.good-tutorials.com/

[Steve Foss]

Oh heck no, Tom, no worries. I didn't take it that way at all. Thought the perspective was worth offering, is all. The wolf is actually sitting on what they call the "greeting rock" which you'll know well if you've been there. It was looking back over its shoulder at some people at windows on the other end of the IWC. Exposing correctly for the white of its coat turned the background shade black, as I'd hoped it would. I'll be printing that one 13x19, matting it in an off-white mat and framing it with 100-year-old stained, oiled and waxed red oak to sell at a show in Ely this winter.

In fact, I passed over this image, which was shot a year ago this last summer, with little more than a quick thought that it was not bad. But I periodically search through archived work to see if I've dismissed something that my maturing eye as a photographer now picks up. It's happened more than once, and it happened with this image. I pulled it up a few weeks ago and said to myself: Golly! (yeah, well, not actually THAT word ) Look what I didn't appreciate the first time around. It's also a jpeg. Wish I'dve shot it RAW.

Sorting through old images for hidden gold is one more good reason to archive and back up digital images.

CS needs 192 Mb of Ram, and prefers 256 Mb. I have an older Mac G4 with 256 Mb and a 500 MHz processor. When I call up a large RAW image from the 20D it opens to a 144 Mb file, and with my older Mac it takes quite a bit of patience to wait for changes to take hold after I make them. And when I interpolate for a bigger image, it might be nearly as big as 300 Mb, and that REALLY becomes a waiting game. But additional Ram cards are cheap considering what you get out of it (I can buy an additional 512 Mb for $100) and on my list to buy, as is a 1 Gb processor ($350).