thank you Akira, Jacques and Randy
Mongo:
I like both your premise and the results. As a fairly serious bird photographer, I struggle with the technical vs. artistic side balance at times. It is one of the reasons I like to post here, as this group has a broader perspective than the pure bird sites.
I love the color palette here, soft light, interesting poses.
Did you do anything special in post to play up your artistic vision? I must admit to letting a little vignette sneak into some of my images at times.
Cheers
Randy
Randy,
yes, bird photographers like yourself (and Mongo for a lot of his time) try to get the most detailed, colourful, sharpest examples of birds. Would not worry too much Randy because you will find that even then, you will subconsciously, instinctively or even just consciously try to incorporate many of your photography ideals. Whether at the time of taking the image you will try to get the subject better framed if possible, wait or move slightly to get better light on the subject, vary the aperture for that background etc. You will also find that what you cannot achieve in the field in the regard, you will have a little voice in your head later during post processing telling you to incorporate whatever photographic ideals, rules and even personal artistic preferences that are possible to incorporate in PP. Our photography instincts are probably working most, if not, all the time. It is whether or not you get that rare photo situation/opportunity that lets you really lash out with it.
Mongo’s story with these images is just an extreme version and a fluke which he took advantage of at the time. He is simply urging others to be alert and open to these possibilities when and if they present themselves in more obvious ways that just beg you to try doing something with it that just has a lot more of you in it.
To answer your question, Mongo did a few small things to the images because, in this case, the RAW files were already strongly hinting in the direction Mongo finally took them. This was not a direction Mongo had headed off to achieve but was persuaded to try after looking at the RAW files. They were darkish, fairly saturated because of that, somberish in mood, the light was very diffused and soft from the shade of the tree, the background was reasonably “sleepy” and out of focus and so on.
Most of the PP involved some slight colour adjustment to water down a heavier colour cast (yellow in this case), then some selective lightening and darkening of portions of the image using vignetting . The vignette Mongo uses is not the usual one found as a tool on photoshop and other software. It is one which Mongo learned from a Peter Eastway article many years ago. It uses the lasso tool with highish pixel count (assuming you are working on a largish file) in ever expanding circles or shapes in combination with whatever tool you like to darken e.g. curves, levels, brightness/contrast, saturation etc. Mongo has found this technique gives you infinite control, merges better and generally far superior to other methods. Some selective sharpening on the subject only.
While on the subject of vignette, many frown upon it. Mongo is not at all sure why. It is a perfectly legitimate and useful process used in appropriate ways and in appropriate cases.
