Blankisart

Surprised Frog

Apr, 2016

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken in Chicago, Illinois, United States at the Shedd Aquarium. Most of the rooms have very low exposure for my camera, including the aquariums. This was very challenging for me, at the time.

Time

This was taken in the afternoon, at 2:24pm Central Time. The Shedd Aquarium was packed and active. I was walking all over the place trying to take the best shots I can. It was hard. Capturing images of fishes and sharks swimming were not easy to make it look aesthetically pleasing, as a photographer.

Lighting

I was inside an aquarium, so everything is like film noir: very dark in the room, but very bright in the aquariums. Lots of hard lights with high contrast. The lights would reveal scratches from the glass. Every movement you make will create reflections, which would ruin your photos! Regardless of the brightness of the light, it was too dark for my camera. This photo I took was set to an ISO of 6400; the shutter speed was 1/25; and the aperture was f/5.6!! I was lucky to get a shot like that, to be honest.

Equipment

The equipment I had was very simple. I used a Canon T3i with an EF-S18-55mm normal kit lens. no tripod. no flash. Just the camera, lens, and my good eye.

Inspiration

Boredom. One of my favorite electronic musician, Aphex Twin, use to say that boredom is his best inspiration for making his music. I believe this applies to me when doing photography. My biggest motivation when doing photography is to just pick it up when I have the opportunity to do it. I don’t always have a specific plan on what kind of photos I would exactly take. I just pick up the camera to wherever I am going. Sometimes, I won't have a clue what’s coming through my little viewfinder. A friend of mine wanted to go to the Shedd Aquarium. I have never been there before, and I like to do nature photography, so I thought this was a chance to try something new. I picked up my camera, put it in my back pack and went to the CTA train with my friend heading to the Shedd Aquarium. We had a blast there! Out of all the photos I took, this photo was the only one that had potential. Every other photo I took were technically not at par and they were not aesthetically viewable. This photo, though, caught me by surprise.

Editing

Definitely! Not too much, but enough to make it work! I was using Adobe Photoshop CS6. When I took this photo, it lacked depth and it looked very dull. So, I brightened it up a little bit with more contrast to the rocks and the frog. I boosted the vibrance to reveal more color to this photo. And lastly, I did a high pass filter to help sharpen the image.

In my camera bag

It’s funny you asked that, because now I have enough equipment to take some interesting photos. I have two telephoto lens, a wide angle lens, tulip, uv filter, etc. But back then, I was a college student with very little money. I was using a point-and-shoot camera for 6 years before I got my T3i. Getting the T3i was a gift from my mom which was a lot of money for her. And luckily, I bought an incredible tripod in mint condition for only $4 at Goodwill! My dslr, my kit lens, and my tripod were the only things I had at the time in order to take this photo. Although, getting great quality equipment makes a difference in your photography, I mostly concentrate on developing great skills in my photography.

Feedback

I have 3 advices to give, if you don't mind: 1. Content beats most technical aspects: What matters to me, technically, is good exposure, good compostion, good shutter speed, good aperture, and clear lens focus. The basics, mainly. But no matter how balanced your RGB is in the histogram or whether your image was exactly in the rule of thirds, the content of the photo is going to matter more to you and your viewers than most of the detailed technical aspects behind it. Expression, unique moments, and original perspective is what’s going to impact your image. 2. Don’t worry about having too little: Sometimes, the more you lack equipment, the more you motivate yourself to be more creative with your photos; from figuring out how to get close to an animal with a normal lens, to pushing your camera to the limit of getting great exposure without using a lighting kit. 3. Persistence: There is always a gem or two in your series of photos. You just got to keep shooting until you get some.

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Blankisart

Surprised Frog

Behind The Lens

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