some thoughts on "distracting" backgrounds

Hi everyone --

Looking for macro shots of inverts I came across a post from 22 April 2004 "EOS 300D in the Med. Sea: Nudi" and this was one of the responses:

"grasshopper wrote:

Christian,

From a neophytes point of view: When I look at nudibranch photos, I look for detail and color first, character second. The background detail is almost always a minor anoyance. The less distracting background the better. This nudi isn't perched on anything particularly interesting and s/he isn't posing, so I would prefer a tight crop and zoom in on the amazing detail . . . but that's just me."

As an invert specialist this had a very strong affect on me. Backgrounds aren't just distracting, uninteresting, or minor annoyances. They're important sources of information, especially so in the case of nudibranchs. Many of these and other inverts are specialists. They only eat one organism which they spend most of their time seeking out & even lay their eggs on it so the hatching larvae have immediate access to food. A nudi specialist wants to see the hydroid the nudi was sitting on in the picture for clues to the nudi's life history & to what to look for when searching for the species in the future. It's even more important when the nudi (or worm or whatever) is undescribed and specimens must be collected to make the description & name it. So in contrast to Grasshopper's point of view, I'd like to make the case that an UW image can include some background and if properly framed, still be an excellent image in more ways than one!

Thanks, Leslie

(and extra thanks to Eric for encouraging me to post this)

Nice to hear another point of view Leslie....thanks for helping me consider other options

I spent a long time here in Cayman trying to take photos that showed critters and fish in their environments .. mainly because at the time I was just learnign how to guarenteed find all of these things.

Now I got pretty good at it .. and i can find most stuff here, but you have to go to the right places ... still working on the damn frogfish here though .. grrr ... i will find one !

An interesting discussion. I agree that it can be important to show the background in a shot to tell a complete natural history story. The counter argument is that not all underwater photography is about natural history - even when the subject is marine life. Sometimes the impact and strength of the image should be a higher priority than the biology. Ideally you may want both!

Alex

Hi!

It depends on what kind of picture you'd like to shoot.

As a scientific photographer you'd like to see an ID photo. All significant elements to identify the plant|animal and to learn as much about its environment as possible.

From a mainly artistic point of view the total effect of the image may be much better if you crop, use a weird angle or pick out a detail by controlling DOF.

I had quite some thoughts about my pictures during my recent trip to Lembeh. It led to sort of a crisis and the result was worse than expected. I did some quite bad ID shots and also quite bad "ornamental" ones. But there are a few left that I really like.

Currently, I try to take pictures that tell a story rather than to simply show "yet another xxx". It's hard to achieve.

Sometimes it helps to isolate the subject. Controlling DOF is just one way to do it. Light composition e.g. is another. For the non-scientific audience it's sometimes hard to see what's on the picture at all. Pointing out your model helps a lot in this case. I've got a picture fo a frogfish where I still can't tell where the frogfish ends and the background starts ;-)

I really love nudies and I even did a few shots where I put my knife next to it to show the size. I wouldn't put such a picture in my web gallery but I know, there are people who love to get that information. I also try to get depth info for each nudie picture from my dive profiles.

Helge ;-)=)

Ideally I do want to see both, Alex, at least in the category of natural history. A picture can be accurate yet if it's boring or badly composed no one will bother to look at it. Laz's & your own currently posted mantis shots are perfect examples of great images both visually & in terms of the information they convey. Every one who's responded - Karl, Helge, Giles, you - all excel at this. Bill Rudman's black background nudibranch images (http://www.seaslugforum.net/) are taxonomic photography at its best - the details are all there and the pictures are stunning as well. That's what I aspire to in my own photography. The ideal guide book would be the published equivalent of Rudman's site, with both types of shots - in situ pictures so divers can identify what they see underwater & which show life history, and taxonomic images which clearly show the isolated animal & emphasis the diagnostic features.

Certainly natural history isn't the only aim of photography - how boring that would be and how much we would miss if it were!!

Cheers, Leslie.