On The Water

I recently had the opportunity to cover the TBF Federation National Championship bass fishing tournament on Table Rock Lake in Missouri. I rode in a bass boat and followed some competitors as they fished for the "Living The Dream" package which is basically an all expenses paid year as a professional bass angler on the FLW  Tour. This was a very exciting opportunity as I am a bass fisherman myself and have seen many of these tournaments from the bank but this time I was finally able to get out on the water.

Photographing and taking video of a bass fishing tournament is not as easy as it seems. You are not guaranteed to see the angler catch some fish. One first needs to decide who to follow on the take off. Hopefully the boat you are in is able to keep up with the angler you are trying to follow. Secondly, I was not familiar with the lake at all, again, hopefully your camera boat driver is.

Gerry, my camera boat driver

The next thing you need to think about is what gear do you need. I decided on the Nikon D5300 with the Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 and the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 along with both GoPro cameras and a Canon Vixia video camera. I also had the Nikon 55-300mm kit lens in my backpack.

One of the items you need to worry about is the protection of your gear as a boat ride can be extremely rough. The backpack I use, the LowePro Flipside 400 had enough room for all my gear and offered up some good protection with all the padding. I did bring a pillow along (swiped from my hotel) to place in the storage locker of the boat as added protection. All the gear needs to be stowed when you are driving in the boat as you are likely to get sprayed with water as you scoot along.

Now once you find your angler, you need to stay far enough away as to not impede his fishing but close enough to get the shot. Most if not all of my on the water images were shot with the 70-200mm lens. You also need to determine the amount of time you want to spend with that angler. When you do finally decide to leave that angler the fun begins. So, Table Rock covers about 67.5 square miles and now you need to find 1 of the other 49 bass boats somewhere on the lake while travelling about 65 MPH. Fun is!

Fishing was slow for the guys I followed. I did get some video of the anglers catching fish but no still images. I was able to get some good fishing shots of several anglers a few nice landscape and nature shots.

This was a fantastic experience and I really enjoyed this type of camera work. I am looking forward to the next time I am able to get on the water to shoot another tournament. I really liked the fact that I was able to combine two of my passions, photography and bass fishing.

Till next time...

E

kappyskeepers

Patience

You are taught growing up that patience is a virtue. Some people have it some people don't. I am generally one of those who don't, unless you are talking about photography.

In photography you need patience for several reasons. In some cases it is needed to grow your business. Growth does not happen over night it takes a while to get the ball rolling and to get the "word" out, which is where I am at right now. I am being patient as my website, Facebook page, portfolio etc grow. I know the business side will come, eventually. All it takes is patience.

In actual photography you sometimes have to employ patience as well. Once in a while, the light might not be the way you want it or the scene is changing. I have waited quite a long time to get the shot I pictured in my mind in the past.

In Disney's Epcot Center I took a daytime shot in the United Kingdom Pavilion with no one in the shot. As you can imagine, I waited quite a long time to for that to happen.

On our first trip to the Florida Keys in 2014 we stopped to watch the sunset at a place named Anne's Beach. As the sun was going down we found the perfect spot but there were people walking close to and around one of the focal points, a tree that was silhouetted by the sunset. Luckily I had the patience to wait them out and I ended up with a beautiful image. That took some patience as the sunset changes minute by minute and disappears quicker than you think.

We took a trip in the winter of 2015 to the Vermont Ice Castles at Stratton Mountain. What a neat place! We walked though this hallway made of icicles and I thought it would make a pretty interesting picture. It was a main thoroughfare in the exhibit and I ended up waiting around an hour to get a shot with the hallway completely empty but it was worth it.

I have also had to be patient in my learning of the DSLR cameras. With experience comes knowledge but I wanted to get good shots instantly. Well that didn't happen. After I bought my first camera I took it everywhere and took as many pictures as I could but I was not getting the images I "pictured". I had to utilize some patience to get better. The more you shoot and learn, the better you will become. I still take my camera everywhere and try to take pictures as much as possible.

So, in the end, patience is really a virtue and a tool.You need patience in life in general but also must employ it in photography as well.

See you next week.

E

Kappy's Keepers

Post Processing

Post Processing for those of you who don't know, is basically editing the image after it has been captured by the camera.

When I started taking pictures I never really used editing software. I had some pretty good images but not great. I found some free programs, somebody gave me a program but they all had limited capabilities and really didn't help the images at all.

Recently I started using the most up to date Adobe Creative Cloud Lightroom and Photoshop programs. Wow! I have had some limited Photoshop programs in the past but these tools are amazing. I also use a couple of mobile apps to edit images as well, Snapseed and Pixlr. These mobile apps are pretty easy and basic to use and you can get some very cool looking edits out of them. I primarily use the mobile apps for a lot of my GoPro stuff.

Post processing can really bring out the beauty of your images. Sometimes all you need is one small action to get the look you want, other times it may be a whole compliment of actions. I believe post processing can make a good shot to begin with even better. Of course this is not the "magic bullet" that will make your work outstanding but again simply another tool at your disposal. I run all the images I put out through some sort of editing process. Very rarely do I put out an untouched image. I like to bring out the fine details or get the exact look I was going for in my images. I see the finished product in my mind. I take the shot and the post processing puts the final touches on the image.

Sometimes there are simply things you don't notice when composing and capturing the image or something in the background stands out more than you think it should. I recently took a walk around Downtown Springfield Mass the other day and took a great shot of the front facade of Theodore's. Once I downloaded the image, you could see the back side of a street sign in the lower right hand corner. I didn't even notice it when I took the picture. With Photoshop it took about 15 seconds to completely remove the sign.

I shoot in manual mode all the time so once in a while you may get an underexposed or overexposed image. With these tools it is an easy fix. I also shoot in the RAW format which does not get processed in the camera. Jpeg images are "processed" within the camera's software. I like the RAW format as I run all my images though post processing anyway. Most mobile devices won't recognize the RAW format so the mobile apps don't really work with that format. Of course there are exceptions, such as the new Adobe mobile version of Lightroom.

Now to add to this, there are all kind of companies and individuals who put out "presets" for Photoshop and or Lightroom. Presets are actions that are combined to get a "Look". These actions are loaded into the programs and with one click they will edit the image to the preset specifications. These can be useful when editing large numbers of images or if you don't really know how to get the look you desire or simply want a different look to your image.

Some of my images are highly edited and some are virtually untouched, minimal actions.

I guess what I am trying to get at is I want to put my best image forward. I am my own worst critic, I try to get the absolute best looking image I can and post processing is a tool I use to do that.

See you next week.

E

Kappy's Keepers

Location Location Location

As you all know I am fairly new to this whole photography thing. I have found some great spots to capture some images however.

Locally, I have wandered around the Arcadia Wildlife Refuge in Easthampton Mass a few times and have really enjoyed my time there. There are some great opportunities to view some wildlife, waterfowl and birds throughout the refuge. The paths and surrounding flora and fauna provide some great imagery as well. There is a vernal pool just behind the main building with hundreds of frogs to be viewed. A few walking paths have you down by the Oxbow section of the Connecticut River with great views of the water and they also have built an observation tower for the public's use. This is a great place to spend some time getting back to nature and provides a chance to get away for some wildlife shots.

Recently I took a walk around Downtown Springfield. Springfield has some awesome places to capture some interesting images. Outside the Springfield Museum there are some really cool Dr. Seuss sculptures and some really nice landscapes to capture. The old churches make for great subject matter as well. There are some really neat little sections with some really neat artwork on the outside walls in a few different areas that you would just pass by if you were not walking. The old buildings that are vacant or being torn down offer a great chance to get some unique images as well.

I drove by an old burnt out mill in Holyoke about a million times and it always drew a glance from me as I went by. In October, I stopped by and briefly walked around with my GoPro. Man, I can't wait to go back there when the weather gets better. It is a really cool site! Burned out buildings, graffiti, abandoned objects, broken walls, they all just beg to be photographed.

Last winter we went to Stratton Mountain in Vermont to the Vermont Ice Castles. They basically build a small city out of icicles. It was a very cool place to capture some images and at night it is lit up by lights inside the ice.

Between the Fairs, Expositions, car shows, Festivals, music venues, wildlife sanctuaries, city and state parks there is so much to try to capture around this area it is mind-boggling.

As far as traveling, you can tell by my images we love the Florida Keys. I could spend all the time in the world taking photos there and still not capture all the beauty of the Keys. There is so much to see! From sunrise to sunset and beyond the sights are amazing. From Key West to Key Largo, well I just can't say enough about the Florida Keys other than they are truly amazing and I can't wait to go back.

I am looking forward to some travelling in the coming years and exploring some new areas. i am sure wherever we go I will find something interesting to photograph.

Take a walk...you might just see something you pass by everyday that you never noticed before.


Thanks for playing along,

E

Kapy's Keepers