Where's The Light- Wildlife Portraits and the March Thanda Workshop

Effective lighting in portraiture invariably adds drama and a sense of story to a good portrait. Portrait photographers hardly ever use a simple head on lighting approach and when they do it is through a heavily modified flash head. even the most simple of outdoor portraits taken with available light tend to be modified through shooting under convenient shade or by using reflectors or a well chosen wall to balance and craft the light that lands on the sitters face. So why should wildlife portraiture be any different?

It shouldn't. Yet so many photographers, especially those starting out in the world of wildlife photography shy away from difficult light. The reality is that the more dramatic the lighting the more effective the portrait. This is even more important since animal behavior in wildlife photography has become more of a photographic topic than portraits. Still, time and again, when approaching wildlife I see how the photographer or the guide that the photographer has hired will set the vehicle so that the sun is as much behind them as possible. The less of an angle on the sun seemingly the better. Not true!

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Inspiration in a Blade of Grass

One of the most valuable lessons in creativity that I ever leant was from Freeman Patterson’s book, “Photographing and the Art of Seeing”. It’s something that I have to keep reminding myself as it is all to easy to shrug off a scene as simply being not photogenic enough. The lesson that was repeatedly driven home in Patterson’s book was that everything has photographic merit...everything.

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Layering for Effect - (and) February Drakensberg Experience

I've been slack of late with the blog writing, trying to to catch up on things like paid work (someone has to do it) and workshops. At any rate the end of February was also the second workshop in the Drakensberg with the African Impact photographers. Apart from one dud morning where the clouds hung so low that we were unable to shoot the dawn we had absolutely splendid shooting weather. Of course the low lying cloud lent itself to macro work with dew laden grasses and flowers, so even that wasn't a problem.

It seemed the workshop was something of a 'layering workshop' this time round, so here are a few example images with a brief explanation as to the rationale behind them.

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Natural Light

I have to admit I have been a huge fan and convert to location lighting and the 'strobism' movement for the past few years. This sometimes means that I end up using lights simply because I can, not because I need to. This isn't a good thing. In particular I am a avid reader of Joe McNally's writings and really admire his work. Similarly David Hobby's insights into the use of flash on location have been mind-opening. Then there's Don Giannati's who seems to seamlessly introduce artificial light in a way that it should always have been there.

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