ManCaveStudio – Wet-Fly Emergence
- This topic has 15 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated Feb 5, 2009 at 1:24 am by
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I have been playing around with a new concept of simulating key phases of insect life cycles using only single props. I got the idea from a junior high art book I found at the dollar store. The goal is to convey a concept of fly tying at each stage of an insect life-cycle in relation to how we tie and fish the flies (using only one prop). These are the first in a series of wet-flies. The prop is a single piece of bubble foam which, I feel, best conveys the concept of riffle foam lines and a typical emergence. What do you think?
Lead Wing Coachman tied on a wide gap hook. Fished with the wet fly swing.
Shadows
Early morning emergence
Neal,
Great photos.
Is it an intellectual property issue, or can you share the method you use to get the reflection with the blue background?
Tim,
ManCaveStudio is just a name I came up with. I tried to copyright the name but apparently some local rock group in the midwest got it first, aagghh. However, the name seems to fit with my goal of doing journalistic/fashion/artistic photography of fly tying. The man cave is an escape from reality and I have always wanted to capture that feeling with macro photoraphy. Big ideas come in small packages. Furthermore, my outdoor photography skills are poor to say the least and there are plenty of guys in the industry doing that already.
I have spent countless hours studying, reading, and shooting to get the puzzle worked out and I have only scratched the surface. I encourage anyone to read, read, read, take notes, and most of all practice. Along the way you will develop your own style. My personal goal is to develop a style of fly photography similar to photojournalism – my mind’s eye has always wanted to tell a story with fly tying. I am always happy to share tips and tricks on general macro photography or answer specific questions after someone has struggled with the puzzle and hits a road block. However, the advanced techniques . . . ::)
Nice photos.
There is a weird off balance tension going on in the photo that I find on the brink of making me feel uneasy when looking at it. Like I want to move the fly around so it doesn’t look off balance. I think the tension is due to the slight angle of the fly.
Also to convey the feeling of emergence, you way want more lead room in front of the fly. As it sits now, the fly is a little too far to the right for my liking.
I do like the darkness and separation in the first photo.http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.
http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox InstagramThanks for the input Chad . . . I was hoping you would jump in here. Your fly shots have always inspired me.
I especially like the comments on angle of the fly for the cripple shot. I was playing around with this quite a bit trying to figure out the best way to convey a cripple with shallow depth of field – like “hinting” at a cripple body in back that was struggling to get free.
Here is an en fosse angle. I felt it was a bit “typical” and also my depth of field was off at the tail.
This is the previous shot but cropped out to give more front room to the composition. Now that I see the two shots next to each other at different angles I see what you are saying. I like the original better.
Neal,
I just pulled a mirror from our bathroom, put some florist’s putty on a fly, and snapped this photo:
The double reflection from the mirror isn’t good, but if I use a single-surface reflector, will I be on the right track?
The single prop is an interesting idea. I really like the simple complexity of it. It has sort of an oriental feel.
I originally liked the second of the original pictures, however, the more I thought about it and looked at them, the first picture is far better. It isolates the fly and the prop, which is exactly what you are trying to do. The second photo, while very nice, does not have the same impact.
I also like Chad’s idea of offsetting the fly to the left a little. I think it would convey the concept of motion a little better.
My next thought is to cut off part of the hook so the fly will appear to be on the water surface.
It is tempting to modify the fly in order to get creative effects but I discourage this practice.
Thanks Bob, I appreciate your input knowing how much experience you have with fly tying/fishing. BTW, the first [black BG] shot is magnitudes more difficult to do than the second. It is my favorite so far.
Very keen eye with the “oriental” look. Hahaha, I have been taking pictures of sushi lately and have been very impressed with the perfect simplicity of many of the Japanese photos (and food, yummmmm).
Thanks for the compliment Neal,
My previous comments were about the first 2 wet fly photos, sorry if I wasn’t clear on that.
For the emerger shots in the water, have you thought about getting shots at or below the water surface level? A small aquarium may be a good investment to take these shots to the next level…http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.
http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox InstagramThe discipline required in mapping out the shot first, acquired knowledge and application of this knowledge, the understanding of light shaping with highly technical preplanning, the proper use of strobes and understanding how to best use them… I LOVE the dark shot!!!!!
The Man Cave (MC Studio 🙂 ) has become a higher end technical facility :).
[s:3rxawjl8]Thanks for the mentorship Ben. You are the master.
OMG!!! What a great idea about the studio. I never really liked having my webpage domain being my full name.
I registered the domain http://www.studiomfa.com. It stands for Man-Cave Fly Art Studio. I cleaned up the webpage and transferred it to the new home. Also, I disabled the ability to leave comments under the blog section because frankly iWeb is horrible at blog entries. In the future I may get better software that will have a more robust blogging capability.
Check out the new site and let me know what you think:
http://www.studiomfa.com[/s:3rxawjl8]
EDIT
GoDaddy informed me today that http://www.flyartstudio.com was available!
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