In the Field

Sushi. Inlet of Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada. October 7, 2011.

No offense intended to any culture in coming up with the title to this image - since being told that some sushi dishes contain raw fish I've been kind of off eating this cuisine style, but I have no trouble with those - human or otherwise - that enjoy it. Apparently this beautiful grizzly bear is quite fond of it!

I've commented in many places, both on this website and during various other teaching "moments", how the knowledge of what you can do during image processing can (and probably should) influence how you capture images. This entry is a little bit different - it's about how some of my ethical beliefs in capturing and processing images have influenced how my image processing skills have evolved over the last 5 or so years. And it's about how learning some new processing techniques can help you keep your ethical standards intact!

Like most digital photographers I spend a fair amount of time thinking about the ethics of digital image processing and digital image manipulation. And, as a wildlife photographer (and fairly staunch and not-at-all-in-the-closet environmentalist/conservationist) I believe in striving to minimize the impact of my photography on my subjects. This image embodies a minimum of 3 of my thoughts and/or beliefs in both conducting image capture and image processing:

1. Even the best digital cameras don't capture scenes exactly the way we see them - there are differences in colour, contrast, dynamic range, and even overall brightness between what our cameras see (and record) and what our eyes see.

2. I'm not comfortable with adding or removing "things" to/from my images (though I have no issue with removing objects that are artifacts of the photographic process, such as using the clone tool to remove smudges on an image caused by specks of dust on the image sensor). The rule I apply to myself is that if I DO make a change to an image beyond what could easily done in a darkroom (e.g., exposure or contrast changes) then I must disclose it.

3. I don't believe in using flash on species of wildlife where its use could directly or indirectly harm the subject. In the case of large carnivores I won't use flash because if the subject reacts negatively to it (catch a big bear on a bad day and you never know how it will react to something unusual) and ends up roughing up me (or, preferably, someone I'm with) then odds are that carnivore will end up being destroyed.

How do these considerations affect this shot - and how have they affected what I have learned to do during image processing? To begin with, this bear was photographed under very flat light and because I wouldn't use a flash to improve the illumination on the subject I had to do so in post-processing. Given the camera "flattened out" the scene even more (through missing out on a lot of the contrast) I was totally comfortable ethically using a technique I refer to as "exposure blends" to both brighten up the bear and add enough contrast to bring out the detail and tonal range of its beautiful pelage. With exposure blends one makes multiple raw conversions from a single raw file (each differing in some aspect of exposure or contrast) and then carefully merges or composites them in Photoshop. In this case you're looking at a composite of 3 raw conversions from a single file that cover a 1.2 stop total range. Because I spend a lot of time shooting wildlife images where flash is either impractical to use or I'm in situations where I refuse to use it, I end up needing to use the technique of exposure blending a lot and - if you talk anyone who has watched me work an image - I have become rather proficient and efficient at the skills associating with using the technique (various image masking techniques, quickly assessing how much exposure adjustment is necessary to bring an image back close to "as seen", etc.). It's quite possible if I believed that my camera was correctly interpreting a scene, or if I didn't hesitate to use a flash, that I'd have never forced myself to learn the many intricacies of producing high quality exposure blends. And, the funny thing is that I'm now at the point with my image processing skills that now rarely see the need to use a flash at all in my wildlife photography!

Second, like any wildlife photographer I like to minimize the distracting elements in the background and make the subject "pop" a little. But, if you aren't comfortable with going wild with the cloning tool, how do you capture clean, distraction-free wildlife images. Well, to begin with be darned careful with your image captures! But, sometimes you have no means of "cleaning up" a background (or foreground) while in the field. Take this image - I couldn't ask the bear to move away from the darned log that was right behind it! Well, shooting with a lens with a large aperture and blurring the background helped. But, so did my exposure blend skills - here I used one of my favourite "tricks" (and please don't tell anyone - it's a secret) - using an exposure blend I pulled the brightness of the background back (in this case by a full stop) while not darkening the subject. And, along the way, it made the subject "pop" quite nicely.

The moral of the story? Even in today's hyper-competitive world of digital photography you can retain your ethics both in the field and in your digital darkroom while still producing compelling wildlife images that sell (and that actually resemble what you saw in the field!). But, at least in my case, I was forced to learn a whole lot about image processing and digital technology to do so. And, there's no shortcuts to learning the specific skills - you simply have to invest the time and energy. I can't speak for others, but I don't regret the time it took one bit!

NOTE: This image was captured during one of my photo tours into a region of British Columbia known as "The Great Bear Rainforest". I offer both instructional photo tours and "photo op only" photo tours into the Great Bear Rainforest each spring and autumn. If you're interested in participating in one of these trips, just check out the Photo Tours page of this website!

Behind the Camera

Sushi. Inlet of Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada. October 7, 2011.

Digital Capture; Compressed RAW (NEF) 14-bit format; ISO 1400.

Nikon D3S with Nikkor 400mm f2.8 VRII lens - hand-held from Zodiac. VR on in "Normal" mode.

1/320s @ f4; -1.0 stop compensation from matrix-metered exposure setting.

At the Computer

Sushi. Inlet of Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada. October 7, 2011.

RAW Conversion to 16-bit TIFF, including first-pass/capture sharpening using Phase One's Capture One Pro 6. Three exposure variants covering a 1.2 stop total range, from -1.0 stops below original capture (for background and parts of the very white fish) to 0.2 stops above original exposure for slightly shaded region around the bear's eyes.

Further digital corrections on resulting 16-bit TIFF files using Adobe's Photoshop CS5 and Light Craft's Lightzone. Photoshop adjustments including compositing (layering and masking) the exposure variants using multiple luminosity masks, selective colour desaturation, selective exposure and curves (contrast) adjustment using adjustment layers, and selective sharpening for web output. Final tone tweaking performed using tonemapper/re-light in Lightzone.

Conservation

Sushi. Inlet of Great Bear Rainforest, BC, Canada. October 7, 2011.

Ten percent of the revenue generated by this image will be donated to Pacific Wild*

Species Status in Canada**: Special Concern (May 2002).

While Grizzly Bears (Ursus arctos) are not technically listed as "Endangered" in Canada, they have been extirpated from most of their historical range. Grizzly Bears are far more sensitive to intrusion/disturbance in their habitat than are Black Bears and are being increasingly forced into marginal habitat by human encroachment. The Great Bear Rainforest along the central and northern coast of British Columbia is one of the last strongholds of the Grizzly Bear in Canada, and even this population is coming under increasing pressure.

The region this image was shot in is, at the time of this writing (December 20, 2011), facing a new and potentially catastrophic threat. There is a proposal to bring oil super-tankers through the narrow and treacherous channels of the Great Bear Rainforest. Any mishap - such as the one that sunk the Queen of the North ferry on March 22, 2006 - could result in an oilspill with disasterous consequences. Please visit the "No Pipeline/No Tankers Action Page" on Pacific Wild's website for suggestions on what YOU can do to help stop the tankers and/or sign the petition to Stop Oil Tankers. Thanks - this one is worth the effort to fight!

*Pacific Wild is a non-profit conservation organization that is committed to:

1. Defending wildlife and their habitat on Canada's Pacific coast by developing and implementing solution-based conservation strategies. Pacific Wild supports innovative research, public education, community outreach and awareness to achieve the goal of lasting environmental protection in the lands and waters of the Great Bear Rainforest.

2. Working with a diverse array of communities, First Nations, groups and individuals to ensure that biodiversity protection is at the forefront of land and marine use decisions.

3. Mobilizing a concerned global citizenry to achieve large-scale wildlife protection.

Natural Art Images supports the efforts of Pacific Wild and encourages you to do the same.

**as determined by COSEWIC: The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada