"Smiley Eyes" is your highest scoring image on DPC. Did you have any technical challenges with this shot? Did you use natural lighting? What did you do with the dragon fly afterwards?
"Smiley Eyes"
This is not a very technical shot. I shot it handheld with my 550EX and my macro lens. I caught the dragon fly in a bug net. It just stayed there (maybe stunned?) so I was able to fire off a lot of shots, with the net and dragon fly on the trunk of my car. It's fun when a bug cooperates like that so you can move around and compose the shot to maximize the impact of the image.
I let the dragon fly go after I was done. I always like to let my subjects go after I'm done with them. Unless of course I found a dead one and it isn't going anywhere fast :)
My personal favourite of all your images is a fairly recent one, "Baby". How did you get this expression? What did you find difficult about this shot? Manual or Automatic focus?
"Baby"
"Punch"
I like this shot too. I was blown away by how well it did, because I know how people don't care much for baby shots.
I find the expression is special in large part because of the huge eyes. The pupils are huge because the room was dark, and I fired off a shot with a flash. The pupils didn't have a chance to close down. The eyes are extra big because I used my Sigma 15-30mm lens set @ 15mm. This tends to give perspective distortion. It looks like he is doing a self-portrait because he is actually holding the lens hood with both hands. I used Neat Image to soften up the skin a little bit and give more of a surreal look to it.
"Punch" is another example of using the Sigma 15-30mm and letting him hold the lens hood
You are, put simply, one of the best macro photographers on DPC. Some examples - "Hopper", "Bee" and "Fly on a Cactus". Take us through a typical setup for shooting bugs of different kinds.
"Hopper"
I'd like to think my macros get recognized because of the composition and not only because of technical abilities. I feel it's crucial to use well-founded concepts like the rule of thirds and other compositional techniques. It's one thing to get up close and personal, but I feel the same thought process should go into a macro shot that you would use to do a formal portrait or a landscape shot.
"Bee"
When I stumble upon a insect or a small animal, I first fire off some shots to make sure I get a shot. Then I get closer and shoot one more shot, get even closer and shoot one more shot, etc. If the insect is still hanging around (like the dead one in my "Fly on a Cactus", hahahahaha) I really start thinking of what would make the shot special. What angle would be the best? How does the background look? What if I used less DOF, more DOF?
"Fly on a Cactus"
This is my favorite macro shot ever:
Froggy
I found this little frog while looking for grass hoppers. It was so cute I had to take a few pictures of him. I had to find a way to show how small it is so I placed him on a quarter. I placed the quarter on the hood of my car because it's a nice neutral background.
Here's another shot showing how small this frog really was: Froggy 2
Again I let him go once I was finished with him. I would have loved to bring him home and play some more, but I felt I had to return him to the swamp because he would have died at my house.
"Angry Kitty" has to be one of the classics of DPC. I liked the original title, which was "Angry kitty ready for a scratch your eyes, if you vote 1 then your stupid", did I get that right? Have you sold any prints for this?
"Angry kitty ready for a scratch your eyes"
The original title was "Angry Kitty Ready for a Scratch Out Your Eyes (Intentional Abstract, if you Give Me a 1 You're stupid)". I wanted a longer title but DPC only lets us use so many characters. I just wanted to see if I could get a last place ribbon.
I haven't sold any prints. You can still get a 8x10 for $3.53, though. It looks great in a frame. It really does.
Angry Kitty Print
In "Designer Pets", how difficult was it to achieve this affect in post production?
"Designer Pets"
It wasn't too difficult, but I had to use Paint Shop Pro because I couldn't figure out how to cut and paste my cat's head in Photoshop. Once that was done I attacked it with Photoshop. I really learned a lot with this exercise about cloning and the history brush.
What has been the hardest image to photograph, out of all of your entries on DPC? Why?
"Two Classics"
My toughest shot had to be "Two Classics".
I know people whine that water drop shots are cliché but you have to try one to really appreciate how tough it really is to capture. I probably shot 200 shots and this one was the best. Again, I caught a water drop, but I tried to play with composition and the contrast between the black and white.
Please go through the composition of "Primary Glass".
"Primary Glass"
This one was pretty simple but tough to execute because I had to get the refraction just right. I used a long exposure and a tripod to get a proper exposure. I had to move back and forth until the refraction was just right, where the colors were inverted.
The toughest part of the set up was getting the lighting just right. I would get horrible reflections when using front lighting, and back then we couldn't use the clone tool to remove reflections. I had to come up with a way to light the back ground. I used a work lamp to light up the background from underneath a table.
I did a brief How-To on the set up here.
I used the same idea to light up the background in this shot (this time I used a Canon 420EX fired off by my ST-E2 wireless transmitter):
I won't get you to explain "Blueberry splash", because there is already a great tutorial on it. Instead, can you go tell us what you were feeling after you entered it in the challenge. Were you confident it was a winner that was going to be well received, or were you unsure? Did you eat the blueberry after the shoot?
"Blueberry Splash"
I really didn't think it would do well. Like many DPCers I had submitted a few pics that I thought would be winners, and was terribly disappointed to see my entry tank. I decided I would probably never understand those darn voters. I woke up next morning, and saw my score was like 7.5 or something. I was in total shock. I thought it would drop horribly during the day, but it stayed up there and actually went up during the week.
"Psycho" obviously based on one of the best movies of all time, and one of your highest rated images. The lighting is a standout in this shot, what did you use? What choices did you have to make regarding the composition of this image?
"Psycho"
My wife was 33 weeks pregnant when we did this shoot. I wanted a better profile but I thought people would have reacted very negatively if they had known that my "victim" was pregnant. I simply removed the outer shower curtain and left the inside translucent shower curtain on the rings. There is a window in the shower so it let in some spooky light that gave the image the right ambience for the shot. I wanted to use the rule of thirds to maximize the impact of the knife. Of course it had to be black and white because the Hitchcock film had been shot in black and white.
If you would like to explain any more of your images in more depth, please feel free.
"Snugglin'"
This was one of my most fun shoots. |