I thought I’d share how an image can progress from a mundane photo to a print-worthy work of art. And to celebrate the successful creation of my new release, I’m offering ‘Love Song’ at a deep discount in an introductory Flash Sale!
A few weeks ago I went on a day trip to Whitewater Draw in southeastern Arizona, only a couple of hours from my home. Sandhill cranes in the tens of thousands are wintering there. They roost in the shallow ponds at night for safety from predators and fly out at sunrise to nearby fields to forage. They return to the ponds midday when the light for photography is harsh and unappealing.
Due to our ongoing drought, the water level was low and the shoreline had receded from the designated observation areas. I used a big 200-600mm zoom to catch the action, but everything was pretty far off in the distance. Here’s the shot I captured, straight from my camera. Not too inspiring, huh?
Sandhill cranes mate for life and they keep the bond strong throughout the year by performing courtship displays, not only during the breeding season but all year around. In the far distance I could see this pair dancing, spreading their wings, strutting, and raising their voices in vocalization. I clicked the shutter and grabbed what I could, but by no means could this be called a masterful ‘in camera’ capture!
The first thing to do was look for a crop to highlight the intended subject matter and eliminate the distractions. The saving grace that makes this possible is the fact that my professional camera is capable of taking high resolution images which allows for such a severe crop without pixellating the image. I tried both horizontal and vertical crops, tweaking until I finally settled on this for starters. But again, the background was an uninspiring muddy brown and still included bits and pieces of neighboring cranes.
Some enhancements in Photoshop eliminated the distractions and brightened and sharpened the details. But it still was not an image to write home about.
Back again in Photoshop, the final step was to merge the subject cranes with an artistic textural background, using digital brush strokes to blend, strengthen or soften the effect as needed. I chose this particular background for the soft complementary colors and the spattered white space that helps to frame the romantic duo and erase the last vestiges of neighboring birds.
Sure enough, our knowledgeable guides took us right to him two days in a row, to photograph to our heart’s content. After those two days, we turned our attention to the pursuit of the many other wild creatures on our list. A week or so later, we heard that the zebra foal and his mother had crossed the river out of the game reserve and into Tanzania and the wilds of the Serengeti. What are the odds that a trip planned more than a year in advance would land us within photographic range of this unique creature during such a narrow window of time?
During the brief window of time when the Mara’s early morning light was golden, allowing us to shoot our subjects backlit and rimmed with light, this very imposing lion strolled into range of our lenses.
That said – some simple statistics. A lion weighs anywhere from 300-550 pounds, males being significantly larger than females and averaging 420 pounds. African lions stand 4 feet at the shoulder and measure about 9 or 10 feet from nose to tail. Their main prey is the ungulates, hooved beasts like the wildebeest and zebras who populate the African grasslands in great numbers, but they will eat anything they can catch from ostrich eggs to buffalo. If they can catch it, they will eat it. A lion can devour 70 pounds of meat in just one meal. The lionesses are the providers who stalk, tackle and take down the prey, but the males feed first and the cubs are last in the pecking order before the scavengers. Adult lions sleep some 20 hours per day, although to our eyes the cubs appeared to be in perpetual motion!
