Review of Steve Young

Steve Young.

I first came across Steve Young’s work via ‘Photographing Garden Wildlife’, written with Marianne Taylor. This most enjoyable and informative book details the basic aspects of this subject:-

What lives in your garden

Welcoming the wildlife

Photographic kit

Camera settings

Composition

Image manipulation

When I purchased this book I was keen to take photos of the wonderful birds that visit my garden. However quickly the book opened up to me the enjoyment to be had from photographing the small creatures of the garden such as insects or spiders, or the textures of leaves or tree bark.

This picture from the book caught my eye for several reasons. Firstly nuthatches do visit my garden; they are shy, acrobatic and colourful, a delight to watch – just the image I’d love to capture. The colours are clear and accurate, the image in perfect focus. This is a very simple image, with the bird being quite central. The curved shape of the bird draws your eye down to the bird’s face and his eye (positioned at one of the intersections of the Rule of Thirds). The branch also crosses two of the Rule of Thirds intersection points – drawing you back in to the picture, and hence back to the bird. The eye is in perfect focus – giving the impression of staring at (just) you. The background is totally out of focus, so provides no distraction for the base image.

One of the great appeals of the book is that the camera and its settings are listed – in this case Nikon D2X, Sigma 300-800mm lens (at 800mm), ISO 800, 1/60^th sec at f/5.6. This information is most useful as are the notes in the text which explain that as the bird landed very briefly on the branch ISO 800 was used to enable a shutter speed of 1/60^th second to freeze the motion of the bird. The camera was hand held. With my camera and telephoto lens I hope to emulate such a shot.

The image below is also of a nuthatch taken by Steve Young (downloaded from www.birdsonfilm.com (his website).

This image is more dramatic. One major reason for this is that more of the colours of the bird are visible, but in particular the bird’s eye is crystal clear and most striking. You feel you could touch this bird it is so real. I suspect the ISO setting was lower for this photo giving increased clarity. The base of the body crosses a Rule of Thirds intersection point and pulls your eye up to the dominant head and eye of the image; in addition the tip of the beak also crosses an intersection point. The background is more visible, but the out of focus orange is at another Rule of Thirds intersection point and once more directs your eye back to the bird’s head.

This image of a honeysuckle is another that I would like to achieve. Again the image is quiet central, with the top right hand leaf cutting a Rule of Thirds intersection point. From here the eye is drawn to circle round the image of the flower itself. I personally like the fact that the flowerheads which have lost their petals are sufficiently in focus to allow them to be easily recognised, with the dropped petals on the earth in the background just recognisable. This photo thus tells the whole story of the honeysuckle from full flower to loss of petals and seed head.

This image of a garden spider is in perfect focus throughout and shows the beauty of our common spiders. The eyes are not visible – but the colouring of the body is subtle yet vivid, with the spots becoming central points of attention. The web is also in focus, with the top corners both leading to intersection points of the Rule of Thirds, and then on to the spider once more.

For this photo Steve used flash to light the spider. This is a technique I could experiment with, although at present I do not have a separate flash which might limit the results.

(Please note this image includes the central fold of a book.)

When I first saw this image I was amazed by it. I had never considered photographing bark.

The image shows very subtle and complementary colour changes, mainly of yellows and browns. The overwhelming impression is one of texture as the image is so sharp. You really feel that you can touch this tree. Since most people will have touched a tree trunk in their life it is a subject with which you can immediately empathise. You know the texture to expect. In doing so your own memories are revisited. The initial impression is quite chaotic, but in fact the light in the top left hand corner pulls you in to the photo to the darker areas from where the various intersection lines pull your eyes round the photo, not tiring of the image.

I have experimented with this type of image – so far with limited success. However with correct light and an informed choice of subject matter I hope to succeed.

In conclusion I find Steve’s work inspirational. The subject matter is approachable (compared to say photos of African wildlife), and Steve’s book is generous with its teaching.