It Isn’t Always About Depth of Field
“Jared, in your articles you mention that there are many ways in which wildlife photographers go about making their subjects ‘stand out.’ Other than using lenses with big apertures like f/2.8, which most of us cannot afford, what are other ways to accomplish this?” – Michele Taylor, Utah.
When it comes to photographing wildlife, one of the most important skills for us is the ability to make our subjects stand out. To pop. To leap out at the viewer. To demand attention immediately. Hard stop.
While there is a time and a place for creating photographs where the subject melts into the surrounding environment, more often than not the simple ability to make the subject stand out and allow the viewers eye to instantly lock onto the subject can mean the difference between success and failure.
It's a funny thing how different the experiences are between creating a photograph and simply looking at one. Those who see or buy our work start with the subject, the animal, or what they perceive to be the point of the photograph. From there, the eye wanders and experiences the rest of the composition. But as the artists behind the camera, all of that happens in reverse for us.
If we approach our photographs the same way that others “see” our photography, we are setting ourselves up for failure 99 times out of a 100. While someone on Facebook or who is considering buying a 60-inch print to hang above a fireplace may start with the animal, for us to create compelling images that grab that person’s attention we start with the landscape and environment first.
I think this is an important distinction to make.
You and I have absolutely no control over what a bird or bear is going to do. Those animals are going to do what they want, regardless of us. We can’t control that.
But as artists, and it’s time you start thinking of yourself as an artist if you are not already, we must be in control – at least of something. If we aren’t, then we are simply reacting to the situation and animal.
In past articles I have referred to this as a hunter mentality. Sort of like, “I see bird, I shoot bird,” for instance. Maybe a better way of putting this is being a proactive photographer instead of a reactive photographer, however.
The difference between these approaches is the difference between creating boring “snap shots” and beautiful photographs that grab our attention and ensnare our imaginations. When you look at a photographers’ body of work and see that over and over again they create images that stand out and inspire and make you say “wow,” I can assure you that this has everything to do with their philosophical approach to creating that photograph. These photographers are proactively controlling what they can instead of reactively chasing after what they cannot.
And when it comes to wildlife photography, at least in situ wildlife photography, the one thing we can actually control in our images is how we arrange and design the picture space around our subject.
Every time I approach a situation, the first question I ask myself is, “what is the light?” The second thing is, “based on the light, what is the best background to work with?” And the third thing I consider is, “what are the big and strong compositional elements that will be in the photograph, and how can I arrange them to create a compelling set and setting.
While I cannot control the light, I can control what backgrounds I want to work with, how close or far away I want to be from the subject, and how I think I can best work with that light.
While I cannot control which backgrounds are available to work with, I can decide which one I want to use based upon the light and the subject I am working with.
And while I cannot control what “compositional elements” happen to be around such as trees and boulders and such, I can control how I chose to compose those things in the composition. Will this tree help or hurt? If it will help, how best can I compose with it. If it will hurt, can I set myself up to eliminate it from my photograph? If not, how can I work with it, so it doesn’t distract from what I am trying to create?
Does this make sense?
The idea here is that if you want to create more powerful wildlife photographs that stand out, you have to create better landscapes around your wildlife subjects.
Let’s circle back around to the original question of how we make a subject stand out. . .
Putting the emphasis on f/stops to make a subject pop just means thinking in terms of bokeh. But bokeh itself is just one strategy for handling the background. While I love shooting with f/2.8 lenses and creating super soft and creamy backgrounds, I have to recognize that making the subject stand out from the background requires more thought and consideration that just simply trying to blur it all out so I don’t have to “deal” with it – which is, in many ways, all a lot of folks are trying to do when the shoot at f/2.8.
So, getting to the point of all this, the other thing we do to make our subjects pop, that has absolutely nothing to do with using gigantic apertures like f/2.8, is to work with contrast in our compositions.
When I say contrast here, understand that this can mean either contrast in light or contrast in color. But using contrast with light is very limited. A bright subject against a dark background is dramatic and beautiful. But put a subject in shade against a background in sun, unless it’s a silhouette you are creating, that photograph is heading straight for the trash.
Therefore, in the context of this Question and Actions article, I’m talking about color.
Not to worry, you don’t need to know the color wheel here to make this work. While juxtaposing yellows and blue in your composition will absolutely create the contrast I am talking about, you don’t have to be that specific. Instead, just think in terms of light and dark.
FYI: if you reduce the color wheel down to black and white, you will see that those contrasting colors are nothing more than lighter colors juxtaposed next to darker colors.
This series of images here has, of course, nothing to do with photographing pelagic seabirds. However, they came to mind as a good example because of the changes in color between the three nearly identical images. Note that this eastern screech owl is a similar color and tone as the tree in which she is nesting in. For this reason, she blends in perfectly.
In this next image, the only difference is that the female screech owl opened here eyes revealing the bright yellow color of here iris. This one small shift of color, bright against dark, INSTANTLY grabs your attention. Grab someone's attention with some element of your photograph, such as juxtaposing contrasting colors, and you have done more than 99.9% of wildlife photographs created to do manage to accomplish.
In this next image, the only difference is that the female screech owl opened here eyes revealing the bright yellow color of here iris. This one small shift of color, bright against dark, INSTANTLY grabs your attention. Grab someone's attention with some element of your photograph, such as juxtaposing contrasting colors, and you have done more than 99.9% of wildlife photographs created to do manage to accomplish.
To make all of this actionably though, it’s best for us to simplify things down a bit.
Think of it this way: a light-colored subject against a dark-colored background is going to jump out at you and so will a dark-colored subject against a light-colored background.
Ironically, I just finished recording a podcast episode (to be release very soon) this very concept. In the upcoming episode, we discuss being down in Panama photographing a colony of nesting pelagic seabirds out in the Caribbean. While there was several different species to work with, at that time of year the two big ones were red-billed tropic birds and brown boobies.
If you’re not familiar with these two species of birds, the red-billed tropic bird is bright white with a red beak. Meanwhile, the booby is a large drab brown bird with long stiff wings perfectly evolved for navigating the winds blowing over the open ocean.
The nesting colony itself was a large sea stack, or giant rock, standing about 100+ feet high, dripping with lush tropical vegetation, and located a mile offshore surrounded by the many different hues and tones of blue as would be expected from the sky, sea spray, crashing waves, and color of the Caribbean itself.
The island itself offered up background options that consisted of dark green vegetation, deep shadows from the sea caves, and dark rich browns of the rock. Around the island, given the thin veil of clouds in the sky and slightly diffused light of the day, I had the pale blue of the Caribbean sea, the pale blue of the sky, the spray of waves crashing overtop of submerged rocks, and the occasional large boulder sticking up above the water.
In other words, I both dark and light-colored backgrounds to work with.
Given that the red-billed tropic bird was white, this meant that photographing these birds against the dark tones and colors of the island would make these birds stand out or “pop.” Put the white bird against the white spray of the crashing waves or the pale blue colors I had to work with when looking seaward, and things become more challenging. Tropic birds are like the angles of paradise, however. These are exquisitely beautiful birds whose shape and form and presence alone means that I can still make beautiful flight shots of them against those lighter tones, especially since blue and white can go nicely together (contrast). But nothing can compare to photographing them against the blackness of the caves, especially with the occasional tendril of vegetation spilling across the void to add interest to the composition.
The brown booby was the exact opposite. Drab brown bird against rich brown rocks? No thank you. Likewise, composing a brown bird against dark green vegetation (at least a little better) or even the shadows of the caves produce a similar uninspired photograph. Dark tones melt into dark tones.
But put this large brown bird against the spray of crashing waves and the blues of sky and sea, and everything changes. Now we have contrast in colors and the subject jumps out at us. Now we can work with a dark or drab colored bird and make the subject pop.
There’s some interesting psychology and evolutionary biology wrapped up in why this simple technique works so well in our wildlife photography. At the end of the day, you and I are still mammals that crawled out of the same primordial soup as all other life on Earth. There was a time in which survival was hinged upon instantly recognizing that which was different in the landscape before us. A change in the patter of vegetation, a dark shape against a light background, could be a predator, for instance. This why so many predators have evolved camouflage patterns with alternating light and dark patterns, like tigers and great gray owls, so as to break up contrasting colors and the possibility of prey seeing the anomaly. Our brains process an extraordinary amount of information all at once. And the easiest way for us to home in on potential danger was to see the thing that was different and stood out.
As you can see here, there is so much more to composition and creating photographs that pop than simply using expensive lenses with a shallow depth of field. Equipment is often the least of it. Sophisticated cameras and lenses, that cost more than some cars, do not equate to beautiful photographs. When Ansel Adams said, “The single most important component of a camera is the 12 inches behind it,” he was referring to this basic fact. It’s how we see, and think, and approach, and compose, and create in our mind’s eye that makes compelling photographs – not the equipment.
Understanding the power of contrasting tones and color will expand your creative horizons beyond what you may have thought possible before. Not only is this a guaranteed recipe to help make your subject stand out and be noticed in the photograph, but it also opens the door to a whole new way of thinking about your photography.
ACTIONS
It doesn’t matter whether you’re photographing birds on sticks or bears in the forest, look at the situation and try to see the contrast of colors available to you. Once recognized, maneuver so as to place the subject against a contrasting-colored background – i.e. a light-colored subject against a dark-colored background, or vice versa. Regardless of lenses and f/stops, this alone will go a long way to making your subject stand out in the composition and create immediate interest. Photography is art, and the very same compositional principles apply to our chosen medium as they do all other forms of visual art.
