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Digital Nature Photography: The Art and the Science

Over 50,000 photographers can't be wrong! John and Barbara Gerlach finally write the book their workshop attendees have been asking for!

Digital Nature Photography is a how-to guide for photographers who want to take their work to the next level. Written by professionals with over 20 years experience, the Gerlachs reveal enlightening techniques for shooting nature images in the field. The combination of artistic approach and impeccable technique will help you capture your next great image.

·Learn what equipment works best in the field, and why, as well as tips for superb shots
·Create sharp images at capture with detailed instructions for digital exposure
·Master the three factors that lead to excellent images: technique, subject and situation

Two years ago I never imagined this poster would be possible, because it contains images only from Chisholm Creek Park, a single city park well within the Wichita city limits. I’ve been taking pictures for many years, but I never got my camera out to take nature photos in Kansas. I only got the camera out when I travelled to visit national parks and other exotic places. Quite frankly, I didn’t believe there was much to photograph here in the great plains of the American Midwest, fondly referred to as flyover country by people living to the east and west, as in you fly over it to get to somewhere good.

It all started when I bought my first digital camera after shooting slides for many years. I wanted to try out the camera and get used to it before I went on a trip. I chose the city park nearest my home for this exercise because I’d used the trails for training for backpacking and I knew there were a few ducks and geese there. My first day of new digital camera practice was April 9, 2006 (isn’t EXIF data wonderful!). I shot some geese and the plain orange cloudless sunset that day. The next day I tried again. It was early spring and there were some flowers blooming and a nice pink cloud sunset. The next day after that featured a spectacular sunset with great sunbeams flowing from the clouds. It was like photo crack – I got hooked real fast.

It turns out Chisholm Creek Park is a bit special, not just another weed field like I first thought. Its 282 acres and 2 ? miles of paved trails cross native and restored tallgrass prairies, wetlands, ponds and woodlands representative of the major habitat types of the Great Plains. Since the park is managed to maintain the diversity and quality of habitat there’s a lot to photograph in a small area.

Spring did its thing and soon there were ducklings and many more wildflowers. Who can resist ducklings? I liked to shoot wildflowers so I decided to try to get a shot of each different species. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of prairie wildflowers. Then there were goslings and caterpillars and muskrats, turtles and egrets and red-winged blackbirds, bees and butterflies, bullfrogs and snakes, and many more nice clouds and sunsets. I got into the habit of going out for a photo walk for an hour or so around sunset three or four days a week. I set a goal of photographing something new every time I went out, and when you’re looking for something new every time, you pay attention to everything. As Yogi Berra was supposed to have said, “You can observe a lot just by looking.” Many things I saw only a single day out of the many times I went for a photo walk. I didn’t fail to find something new to shoot until winter arrived. I don’t do winter, so I put the camera away when it got too cold.

The next spring I started a little earlier, in March. I’d missed some early-season wildflowers the first year. It’s hard to shoot landscapes in the city, but I began to learn where the best angles were in different seasons as the sun traversed its annual cycle. I also learned the best angles to avoid showing the man-made things just beyond the park boundaries from TV and light towers to the K-96 highway that runs down the middle of the park to the Home Depot store to the east. I tried to get a better shot of the wildflowers I’d shot the year before and continued to find new wildflower species to shoot, not to mention new kinds of bugs and butterflies. I discovered that unlike other places, autumn is the peak wildflower season here.

This year seemed to have an amazing series of sunsets, and I found some more good angles to shoot them. I made an effort to go out every day I could see good clouds out my window. Alas, there are other things to do and I didn’t get to witness every single sunset, but I tried.

I found out the prairie has a seasonal succession of plants in bloom. There is a completely new crop of wildflowers in the same place a month or two after the previous one finished, three or four wildflowers crops in a single season. A lot of wildflowers and bugs only appear for a short season and I’m just beginning to understand where and when different species will bloom. Now in my third year of shooting, I tried this year to get even better shots of things I’d shot before. This really stretched my photographic creativity and I experimented much more in difficult lighting conditions and with more difficult wildlife shots like birds in flight. There were lots of dismal failures, but once in a while I’d get something amazing. With digital, experiments are free, so why not play around? I was certainly lucky this year since it was a wet year and the vegetation was lush through the entire growing season. The tallgrass got really tall this year and the autumn sunflower bloom turned out to be spectacular.

I would have though it would get harder and harder to find things to photograph walking the same two or three miles of trails over and over again, but that hasn’t happened. It s

I'm making TWO Sets of series, one afte another, of this cute little bug, but please only comment on THIS series for ALL of them, so there isn't so much trouble for each one. I thank you for visiting and looking at both series! I thought this was such a unique little guy. He was very tiny and buzzed around like a humming bird!! I've never seen one before and haven't seen one since.

Please view ALL in LARGE for BEST details! Thank You!

EXPLORED TODAY..........8-26-08
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is some Info about this Bee Fly (Bombylius Major)

Bee Fly - Bombylius major
Adult bee flies become active about the third week of April here in the American midwest. They are extremely agile and quick fliers, very wary and difficult to approach. They rarely actually alight on a flower, preferring instead to hover just above, while lowering their proboscis for nectar.
Female bee fly's large compound eyes do not meet at the top.
Bee flies are stout-bodied flying insects said to resemble long-legged bumble bees. Many bee flies have elongated mouthparts that form a conspicuous beak, used for sucking nectar long-distance while hovering over flowers. Bee flies much prefer to hover in midair while doing their nectaring, undoubtedly to avoid capture for those who lurk about flower blooms looking for an easy meal, such as the ambush bugs and the crab spiders. Adult bee flies become active about the third week in April.

You most often see bee flies hovering around flowers, or if resting, usually on the ground, on bare soil. They are extremely wary and difficult to approach. No doubt their large compound eyes give them good vision, plus they have that air-motion sensing mechanism that helps the ordinary house fly avoid the swatter. Adult bee flies drink nectar, but the larvae are parasites of beetle larvae as well as the brood of solitary wasps and bees, the hole or burrow-nesting insects. There are tales of female bee flies hovering over a hole in the ground, flicking her eggs into the hole. Female Bombylius have often been seen sitting in very loose soil, vibrating her butt like mad, so that the dirt is actually thrown outwards. This, is thought as one egg-laying process.

Many bee flies have boldly patterned wings, but it's their shape that generally tips off that a specimen is in the Bombyliidae family. The shape is reminiscent of the best swept-wing fighter jets. The relatively short and usually pointed antennae are another clue, along with, of course, that dangerous-looking beak. Good thing these flies don't bite or sting. All in all, a fascinating insect worthy of study. Next springtime, why not take a trip to the woods? You'll find these gals busily gathering nectar from the dandelions along your favorite sunny path.

Digital Nature Photography is the definitive how-to book on photographing nature with a digital camera. Focusing primarily on the art of taking the picture in the field—rather than just manipulating the image after it has been shot—this comprehensive guide is geared to the nature photographer who is fairly new to the world of digital cameras. Packed with step-by-step directions and resplendent full-color examples from the author’s own body of work, readers will receive hands-on practice with lighting, composition, landscapes, sunrises, sunsets, animal portraits, close-ups, manipulating and storing images, and much more. The essential reference for every level of photographer, Digital Nature Photography guides the reader through a magnificent and unique visual experience into the natural world.