Story Behind Image

Stretching Female Red-Winged Blackbird - The Story Behind the Image /  by Todd Henson

Female Red-Winged Blackbird stretching between two cattails.

One of my regular locations is a park that includes a large area of wetlands, with boardwalks over some areas of water. Parts of the park would fill with cattails. Later in the year, when the cattails had turned brown and the puffy tails were falling off, Red-winged Blackbirds would flock amongst them, pulling off fibers from the aging cattails.

On this day I found a location where several female Red-winged Blackbirds were gathered. They were flying from cattail to cattail. I watched and photographed them, enjoying their acrobatics as they moved amongst the cattails.

One particular blackbird caught my eye. She was on a cattail spaced not far from a couple others. Instead of hopping or flying to the other cattail, as most of the other blackbirds were doing, she stretched her legs apart until she was straddling both cattails, with a piece of fiber in her beak. I was fascinated by the sight. She reminded me of movies with Jean-Claude Van Damme, when he hides on the ceiling of a hall, legs spread apart holding himself up. Amazing acrobatics!

I love spending time observing wildlife. It’s always full of surprises. Have you observed any amazing wildlife behaviors? Comment below and let me know.

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Storm Over Washington - The Story Behind the Image /  by Todd Henson

Storm over Washington

Changing weather can create amazing photographic opportunities, if you’re in the right place at the right time and have your gear ready. Sometimes you can plan for the opportunities, watching the weather, knowing there may be gaps in a storm, or arriving just before or after a storm breaks up, hoping opportunities will emerge. Other times you may get lucky and happen into a situation when you’re able to take advantage of it. My Storm over Washington photo benefited from a little of both. My brother and I were in Washington, D.C., hiking around the Tidal Basin photographing the cherry blossoms. We knew there was a chance of rain but decided to make the trip anyway, knowing the weather might just work out.

We started near the Washington Monument and hiked in the direction of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. The weather held for most of the hike, until we were close to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Facing the Jefferson the sky was nice and clear with a few puffy clouds here and there. But looking back to the left, where we’d come from, was a long string of storm clouds moving in quickly. It looked fantastic. I brought up my camera and started shooting, knowing it wouldn’t be long before the storm reached us. I kept looking to the right to judge how long it would take to reach the shelter of the Jefferson, then back to the left to judge how long until the rain reached us. We exchanged glances, somewhat wide eyed.   We could tell from the clouds it was really pouring, but we were both willing to take the chance.

After I felt I had some nice shots we started quickly walking towards the Jefferson, trying to pack our cameras into our bags as we walked. Lots of other people were doing the same thing, and the Jefferson already looked full of people. As luck would have it, we didn’t quite make it before the rain started pummeling us. By the time we reached the Jefferson we were soaked, but laughing about it. I felt confident I had captured some images that would be worth the soaking.

Thankfully, I was not disappointed. When I got home and looked through the images I felt compelled to try a black and white treatment on the photo, thinking this would bring out the drama in the sky and the sun light illuminating the Washington Monument. I spent a little time dodging and burning different areas, trying to keep the cherry blossoms from going too dark, and adding a bit of a vignette to keep the eye in the frame. I like how the line of clouds and the cherry blossom shoreline leads the eye to the Washington Monument. Creating this image was a great ending to a fantastic day.

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White Water Lily - The Story Behind the Image /  by Todd Henson

White Water Lily - the final image

This white water lily image is my favorite photograph from a trip to Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens last year. There was light rain in the morning that covered all the flowers with rain drops, and the clouds acted as perfect soft boxes, providing beautiful soft light for white flowers. If it had been fully sunny there would have been far more contrast and far more risk of blowing out highlights and losing detail in the white petals. I felt the lighting was perfect for the subjects.

White Water Lily with ripples in pond

I walked around the ponds containing white water lilies, wanting to capture some images while the light was good. I tried a few shots while rain was falling, as seen above. I liked the ripples in the pond created by the rain. It added some nice patterns, and I thought the flower stood out well against the ripples. But I didn’t care as much for the composition. This particular water lily wasn’t appealing to me and I didn’t like the placement of the lily pads. So I kept walking around the ponds looking for other subjects.

White Water Lily surrounded by lily pads

The next water lily I found was growing at water level. I liked this. I liked how the lowest petals pushed against the water and created some texture. I liked the low angle, but would have liked a better view of the yellow center of the flower. And I was slightly distracted by the lily pad in the front, where a curl of the green overlapped one of the flower petals.

Less distracting White Water Lily, but still lacking something

I found another water lily raised above the water, like the first. I focused in more on the flower, with less distraction in the background. There were some lily pads in the background under the water, but these weren’t overly distracting, and I could lessen the distraction in post-processing. But the shape of the water lily wasn’t working for me. Nor was my placement of the flower dead center in the frame. Thankfully, there were many water lilies in the pond and lots of opportunities for creating different compositions. I moved on to the next one.

White Water Lily, getting closer to a composition I like

Now I was getting somewhere. I had a water lily growing at the surface of the water, with the bottom petals pushing against the water. I had a nice view of the yellow center of the flower. I had what I felt was a beautiful looking water lily. Unfortunately, my framing was off. The flower was dead center, which isn’t always bad, but didn’t seem to work in this case. And there was a distracting, unattractive bit of lily pad on the top right. But I had found the flower I wanted to photograph, I just needed a better composition, a better position to shoot from. So I repositioned myself and kept shooting.

White Water Lily. This is the composition I was looking for.

Now we get to the final composition, the one I was most pleased with. I’d repositioned myself such that I could eliminate any distracting lily pads, but was still able to view some of the nice yellow detail at the center of the flower. The light was great, the flower almost glowed. I checked the image on the camera LCD, then looked at the histogram to be sure I hadn’t blown out any highlights. Nothing was blown out, and no shadows were blocked up, so I’d captured all the detail I could. I make great use of the histogram in judging exposure. One glance and I know if I’m blowing highlights or blocking up shadows, neither of which is necessarily bad, but I want to be intentional in what I’m doing. I’m ok blowing highlights if I know I’m doing it, such as when photographing into the sun or at a shiny silver metallic surface. But in this case I did not want to lose any detail.

White Water Lily, the final edited photo.

When I got home I imported the photos into Lightroom and began the editing process. I don’t usually do a lot of post-processing. In this case the edits consisted mostly of tweaking exposure, highlights, and shadows, and cleaning up some of the distracting elements in the water. I lowered the exposure of the water, darkening it, to help draw attention to the flower. I made sure the flower was nice and white, not a dull grey. I also brought out details in the flower, especially the yellow center. I wanted the center to glow, just as it had when I saw it.

Looking back, I wish I’d tried some shots with greater depth of field (higher f-stop number). I would have liked to see more detail in the back petals. But I’m still very happy with the results. Below is a comparison of before and after. I hope you enjoy, and I hope this helps you in thinking, or feeling, your way through future shots. Keep your eyes open, look for distracting elements, be aware of composition, be aware of how the scene makes you feel. As David duChemin often writes about, shoot with intention, with purpose, with vision. 

Below are the before and after images:

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