Nature Photography With A Purpose

Global Warming and CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons) was first discovered by Professor Sherwood Roland.  In his article he describes how the CFCs will deplete ozone that is in the stratosphere.  The depletion of the ozone will allow more solar radiation to enter the atmosphere.  This will cause the surface of the earth to heat up. This is different then the ‘green house gases’ (these gases do not create a green house effect but create a warming effect). 

From this finding the world community was quick to act.  A ban on CFCs was implemented and CFCs were phased out and replaced with chemicals that do not react with ozone.  Unfortunately many CFCs an last in the atmosphere for many decades.  These chemicals will continue to react with the stratosphere for many more decades.

So what does this all mean?  Well there have been reports from scientific observation and research that the ozone hole over Antarctic is stabilizing and recovering.  It is a bit early to say that the ozone depletion in our atmosphere is recovering and we do not have to worry about it any more but these latest observations are quit encouraging.
 

There are other articles and a short video on global warming at nature photography

To follow up on the CFCs is gases that retain heat. (A green house acts on a different principle.) Some gases that retain heat is C02 and methane. Co2 is more of a problem at the moment because there is more of it in the atmosphere. Methane on the other hand retian more heat and therefore a greater problem then Co2 there is just much less of it. The burning of fossil fuels is one of the main sources Co2.

The way that these gases (and there are others) absorbs the radiation entering the earths lower atmosphere is that the radiation is absorbed by the earths surface. The other is reflected back into the atmosphere. Radiation is broken down into wavelengths. Some of these different wavelengths can be absorded by these gases (co2 and methane). These gases then release radiation out into the upper atmosphere and on out into space or release radiation back towards earth. We have had this going for millions of years on earth. It is with the burning of fossil fuels that we have gone pass the average that we have scientifically shown to have existed within the past 800,000 years. (This is done through ice core analysis)

Another problem is that the Tundra in Siberia holds an immense amount of methane. It is currently trapped in the ice but as global warming increases the temperature the permafrost is beginning to thaw and will release large amounts of methane.

The balance that has been maintained for millions of years can be found in this blog post eath atmosphere in balance.

The principles of a “green house” are different then what goes on in the atmosphere but the warming effect is the same.

For those that do not believe in global warming it does not makes sense. If this is a natural occurance warming of the atmosphere by CO2 and other gases and it is needed to keep the earth warm enough to sustain our life then how is it that excess can not be caused by man.

I think after the small series of article I have. I will try to discuss both sides. I will of course try to disprove the other side. If you are a believer that global warming by man does not exist I would like to have you in on the debates.

How has the atmosphere worked before the burning of fossil fuels? Well there has been global warming for a long time. Actually with out global warming the earth would be too cold and life as we know it probably would not exist.

So how does it all work? Well there is an Ozone layer in the stratosphere that helps reflect back some radiation from the sun. The radiation that does enter the atmosphere is either absorbed by the earth the rest is reflected back out into the atmosphere. There are gases in the atmosphere (this is before chemical use or burning of fossil fuels). Gases such as CO2, Methane, water and others. These gases absorb radiation within certain wavelengths. These gases then either emit the radiation out toward space or back towards earth. It is the reflection of radiation back towards earth that helps warm the earth. This is what makes the earth warm enough to make life pleasant for us.

There are parts of the radiation spectrum that would just be reflected back out into space without being absorbed. With the burning of fossil fuels and other gases this “window” that would allow some radiation escape out into space is now being closed. What does that mean? It means that some radiation is now being absorbed in those wavelengths and being reflected back into the atmosphere.

There are also more of the gases that absorb radiation and thus causing more radiation to be reflected back towards the earth. How do we know scientifically that this is really going on? Yes, we can say that we are burning more fossil fuels and releasing more “green house gases” but there are sinks. The ocean takes CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Scientist have been studying the atmosphere from the past. See ice cores and the atmosphere 800,000 years ago. From these studies we see what the average has been for the past 800,000 years. Since the industrial revolution there has been an increase in these levels and a warming of the atmosphere.

nature photography with a purpose by Melinda Sargent

Well finally made it back from South Dakota and processed some images of the farm. The can be found here photographs of Paul Nelson Farm

The last post talked briefly about how the farm is operated. Here in Southern California (OC) there is not much open land available. The Bolsa Chica Wetlands was once drained and used for duck hunting when it was bought out. It was bought up by the oil companies. Parts of the land were sold off and housing development started. So where am I going with all of this? If the land and other land had been reserved for hunting then the land would still be open. The habitat would have been preserved because people would want to go duck hunting. So for a few months out of the year the land would be devoted to duck hunting. The rest of the year the land would be open to wildlife enthusiasts. We would have far more open land in OC. It does work in other areas. It is one possible solution to save wildlife habitat that is being over run by people and development.

Well I have been in South Dakota for a few days now. Sorry for not getting my post up earlier. I have a series of articles on global warming and one article on how photography can be used to help.

I want to take this time to go through a beautiful pheasant farm that I had the opportunity to visit. It is Paul Nelson Farms and if you get a chance it is really a great place to see. (I will post some images later today on my website or maybe tomorrow.) It is a hunting lodge and before you throw your arms up at me please finish reading the article. People are going to hunt pheasant weather we like it or not. There are places like Paul Nelsons Farms that I think are doing a great job in preserving the natural wild pheasant then anyone or any place I have seen. He and his family do not allow the taking of hens (period). The hens are wild pheasants. This keeps a very good and large wild pheasant population and I have to say I have never seen this many pheasant in my life they are everywhere. The rooster that are taken are replenished back into the habitat that he and his family maintain. His farm is over 20,000 acres and a large portion is reserved for the pheasants. There is corn fields and bean fields that are grown just for these birds (and of course there is now a good and healthy deer population as well as a good spot for migratory geese).

I have to say thanks to Paul Nelson and his wonderful family many species of animals are thriving. In other areas hunters go in and take the limit and there is really no one watching what is going on. The habitat is being over run. This might be the way for our natural habitat to survive. He has gone throw great pains to make this a great habitat for the pheasants and other animals have benefited for it.

The red egret photographed here shows and uncropped photograph with a cropped photograph. I then did some saturation, and used levels to find a right balance, in raws mode I adjusted the
Black levels
Exposure
Saturation
(I will talk more about the curves, layers, etc and printing in the near future. There are so many important things to do to get he best print made from your photograph.)
The cropped image looks a bit blurry. The blurring is from cropping and not having using a tripod. I used the unsharpen filter in Photoshop to help sharpen the image. (all images should have some sharpening done. Digital photography has come along way in a short period of time but some things are not perfected. The sharpening of an image should not be viewed as manipulation but as correcting the flaws in digital cameras. You can over sharpen of course.) As we can see it looks more grainy and that is from the unsharpen filter in Photoshop we used. So how can we have an image look sharper with out the grainy effect? There is a very inexpensive tool called Neat image.
I know there are many other types of software out there that does what Neat Image does. I am talking about Neat Image because it does not cost much money and it is a simple tool to use. I do not believe they have a Mac version yet (that is the draw back).
Neat image works as a photoshop plug-in or as a stand alone software. So if you do not use Photoshop you can purchase the stand alone software package. I wont go into how to use the software here we just want to see the effects. The final red egret image is below or you can see the entire red egret photograph series here.
(I will find some better images to show the grainy effects. By time I reduced the size on these you can not see the grain anymore.)

The apples and the poppies photographs are some of the best examples of ideas I had in my mind of pimages that I wanted to get. One photograph took me about 6 shots the other took me about 1000 shots.

Let’s back up and find out how I had the images in my head to try to get in the first place. This is going to sound a bit backwards but here it is. I have taken many images of fruit and flowers over the years. From that my mind began to imagein many different images of flowers but in an artistic manner. Like a painting from a master painter but with the camera. Once I began to think in these terms my photography took a different turn.

Your image in your head may be something completely different. Maybe you see comic strip images and are going after that look. Obviously people will not be comic strip but you can do things like get their motion in a blurred state with their eyes sharp. Saturate the colors and maybe make the shoes they are wearing with bigger. That will require some manipulation in a software package like photoshop but if that is the image you see in you mind then go for it and see where it takes you.

The image in your head first needs to form. Then you need to practice and try different things until you start to see those images materialize on film or digital format.

We will stay with this topic for a bit. I think it is what makes the photography so interesting and you began to develop your own style.

The artistry of photography. A lot of books and seminars talk about the technical and some even talk about composition but why do some photographs really stand out and others, well others are just snap shots.

There is the usual. Keep the main point of the image (like the eyes of a pet or person) in the interesting quadrants of the frame. If you do not know what that is it is ok. I will talk more about it but first I want to talk about the art.

I usually start off with a vision in my head of what I would like to get. When I first started photography I never could get the image I saw in my mind onto film or digital format. It was after shooting for a while before I began to get those ideas I had on film (or digital format). Take the apple images. I had a project of an “apple a day”. The photograph you see is the image I had in my mind. It is the image I wanted to put on film (digital photography). It took me about 6 shots to get it.

So what is the secret to making that happen? Next time I will concentrate on how to visualize the image you want and how the practice of photography will get you there. I think it might take many post on the visual artistic side of photography but I hope you will learn this aspect that truly makes photography the fine art medium that it is.

A couple of sites that offer information from lighting to lenses are photo.net
another really good site on strobs is strobist We did have an OC chapter going but we have not had a meetup in a while now.