I sat down today to work on prepping those Mule Deer
images I promised. Several young males (last year’s
fawns) have been hanging about lately. Adult females and
their spotted little ones share their company as they make
daily visits around the perimeter of the cabin. They stop
to get a drink of water, nibble on the plants and bushes,
and to lay in the cool, shady areas. In photographing
them, I managed to capture some wonderful expressions and
behavior. However, as is often the case (especially if I
attempt to shoot through the kitchen window), I found
myself unhappy with the quality of the photos. It’s
not that they’re horrible, they simply suffer from
various problems like soft focus, contrasty lighting,
improper exposure or unwanted objects. Using a graphics
program like Photoshop, there are countless ways to
attempt to improve or fix these issues. Some times I go
that route… But, other times, I find that if an
image needs a significant amount of manipulation
it’s just more fun to unleash my creativity instead
of trying to make it look like the perfect photograph I
had imagined. By playing with the digital filters and
brushes, altering the color palette or lighting,
it’s possible to create a myriad of artistic
effects.
I thought it might be interesting to start by showing you
this image exactly as it looked after I downloaded it from
my camera:
This young male was so blissfully chewing away on the
Toyon leaves, that he hardly seemed to notice me standing
at the window taking photos. It was a beautiful few
moments. But, the image looked so washed out and lifeless
to me. I wanted to try and add more of the warmth and
intimacy that I had felt. Also, the background was very
bright and eye-catching, so I hoped to even out the light
some, make it twinkle a bit, and highlight all the
wonderful leaves.
I liked the way the deer fills this square crop and the
painterly effect is very close to what I had envisioned.
(If anyone is interested, I used the “Accented
Edges” filter and then experimented with the color
and exposure.)
I know it can be very hard to get a feel for the
subtleties of the texture and brush strokes with the small
size of web presentation. I usually do provide a larger
version that can be seen my clicking on the image, but it
is still a very limited view. So, here is a crop showing
just a portion of the above image so that you can see more
detail.
In this next instance, you can see an example of an
original image which is really not very good. But, I so
loved the composition and the delightful scene it
portrayed that I wanted to try and do something nice with
it.
These two young males decided to lay down near each other
in late afternoon shade. They were just within view
through my kitchen window and they weren’t going
anywhere, but no matter how many photos I took, the glass
distortion and lighting conspired to leave me with less
than satisfactory shots. Additionally, there was that
exposed (defunct) pipe jutting out off the ground next to
the upper deer in every single image. It was the layered
appearance of the background and the repeating shapes of
the deer that had compelled me to take the photo in the
first place, so I tried to focus on those elements when
cropping and transforming it. (In this case, the filtering
process also makes it very easy to seamlessly clone a
portion of the background to obscure the unattractive
pipe.)
Though I don’t always succeed, it is always my goal
to accomplish something that is better than the
original photo. To create something that tugs at the
essence of what I saw when I first lifted my camera, but
then draws it out further… Exaggerating it to evoke
an emotion or feeling that might otherwise have gone
unnoticed.
