Zach Matthews
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Well, paddlefish are amazingly good to eat, but it can take a while to get through a 40-50# fish (I agree on that size, btw – I’ve seen them from 60-80lbs).
Holy. Crap. Good job Leonard! Did you keep him to eat? Those things taste just like swordfish, I swear.
PS I like the second shot a lot but I’d adjust the white balance slightly to lose some of the reddish hues.
Zach
Hey Carter –
There’s no question the Beck GnG shot has been worked to death (though of course it wasn’t developed by them – they are just really good at it).
Pale Morning Media, Backbone Media; there are a number of PR companies out there that provide marketing services to larger companies.
Hey Corey –
I notice a few things that I might do differently and I’ll explain them, but I want to say from the get-go that I like the shot and my comments aren’t intended as anything other than constructive criticism.
We have a few distracting things going on. First, as you no doubt know better than me, the human eye is always drawn (first) to the brightest part of a picture. That’s going to be the white skies, which are “clipped” or blank data spaces. They were the first thing I noticed.
Second, the edges of the clipping aren’t graceful enough to make the effect work like I think you want it to. I have the sense that you are going for a bit of an infra-red feel; high contrast with very bright light color spaces and subtle shades in the low tones. That’s a great idea but the gear you’re using isn’t meant for it and it let you down with a ragged, clipped edge where the mountains transition. It looks like a video-game background.
In terms of a print layout, sometimes white skies work great, because they let the text run right down to the contours of the subject if you get a good graphic designer to lay it out. In this shot, the mountain climbing to the right of the frame might interfere with that layout by giving a “sharp shoulder” to the whole image.
Third, the lady is looking up and over the camera rather than at it; it reduces what would otherwise be a warm and engaging shot somewhat and makes the audience feel like a voyeur rather than a participant.
Fourth, I’d throw a little fill flash up under her cap to avoid the death’s eye-socket issue.
Last, and this is both a positive and a negative, the fish being right up in the camera’s grill would draw irritated comments and/or letters from many anglers who have seen this particular visual trick one time too many. I just offer that up from experience of what a photo editor will be thinking rather than because I really think it’s an image flaw.
The things I like about the photo are just as varied, but maybe a bit unspecific. I like the cold tones; the snow. I like the sharpness of the fish’s face but I would have tightened the f-stop to bring her face into focus as well. I love the wedding ring glinting on her finger. Great fly in mouth, and I generally like the receding position of the fish’s tale, which gives the image movement and depth. I might have lowered the shutter speed slightly (which would be required in any case to get that deeper depth of field) in order to make the water appear like cotton.
Good shot! If you have the original still available with a little data in the sky I think it might be worth re-processing to give it a shoulder on the mountains and submitting for publication.
Zach
Fly swaps are a lot of fun to participate in if they are well run, but they can be rocky both for the swappers and the “swapmeister.”
Adrienne –
Has anyone tried to get their wife/girlfriend/mother/sister etc. involved?
I “taught” Lauren to fly fish at the same time I was learning, which really means we learned together with neither of us knowing what we were doing.
How did that experience go?
Lauren still mocks me for the first time I caught a trout. I was like, “I caught a trout!” (I had left my fly on the dangle while I “showed her how to do something” and some kamikaze stocker hit my fly.) Lauren was like, “So?” And I couldn’t understand it, “A trout! A trout!” I said. “Don’t you get it?” Lauren has been fishing since she was a child so she basically just laughed at me.
How would you feel if your wife/girlfriend liked it enough to want to go out with you on a regular basis?
Lauren used to go out on a regular basis but graduate school put an end to that. Now she will accompany me on serious trips, like to Yellowstone. I would like her to come more often; she is always invited; but it isn’t really realistic with her current time commitments.
Do you know any women who participate regularily?
Not as many as there should be. The first shop owner I ever dealt with was an out of the closet lesbian named Charlotte; great fisherwoman, really good shop personality. She sold her business, which I really regret, because she was unique. I have met a few ladies on the show circuit who participate (I nearly laid Joan Wulff out when I turned a corner and ran right into her at one; that was embarrassing.) One lady who deserves a mention is Paula Begley up at Little River Outfitters in Townsend, Tennessee. She and her husband Byron own and run the shop, but Paula has her own little following of female fly fishers who meet there on Saturdays. It’s a pleasure to walk in and see more women than men standing around talking about fishing.
Are there any women out there who would be willing to share some of their good or bad experiences?
Do you feel like there has been an significant increase in the number of women who fish in the last 5 years?
No, and it’s a shame. I know from magazine readership numbers that the current number of female readers of fly fishing magazines is below 5%. Meanwhile, manufacturers report closer to 25% of sales are to ladies. They wouldn’t keep the gear in stock if it didn’t sell, and a lot of fly fishing product designers are actually women (for instance, Diane Bristol at Simms). So I don’t understand that; whenever I propose female-oriented articles they have to go through a vetting process of “can we afford to give this much space to only 5% of our demographic in an attempt to make that demographic somewhat bigger, in this issue?” Usually the answer is no, although we all do our best to include as many ladies as possible on background for stories (quotes, etc.) All I can guess is that women tend to be less likely to obsess about fly fishing to the level that they will read about it when they are not doing it; maybe women are less escapist in their daily lives? Most men read fishing magazines as a substitute for actual fishing; they would rather be on the water but since they can’t be, they adopt the next best thing. Women may not work that way, I don’t know.
Zach
You need to get a thin filter no matter what the cost. You are spending an awful lot of money to get a very wide angle lens and you don’t want to cripple that lens’ ability to give you the shot you need at the widest angle. I have no vignetting issues with the Nikon Circ-Pol on the 12-24mm, and I’ve now used that setup very extensively since I bought it. I do have serious vignetting with my Singh-Ray GND filter and the Cokin P mount, as is natural with that much stuff going on in front of the lens. I’ll tell you, it is very annoying to realize I can’t get to 12mm (or even 14mm) when I want to.
Zach
PS Edit (*wide* angle not “side” angle.
I changed my meter point off the dark water and onto Travis Wiles’ mid-toned waders, for one, and I also may have dialed down some Exp. Comp.