Natural Perspectives:

Photography today, like painting in previous centuries, has helped the environmental cause by bringing remote or difficult-to-observe natural scenes and subjects to the public eye. Photography can be used to show off the beauty of nature as well as to document features of nature.

For example, local environmentalist Mark Bixby uses photography to document native plants and animals on the Shea property to help in the fight to save the degraded wetland parcel west of Graham Street next to Bolsa Chica. Sea and Sage naturalist Trude Hurd uses her photography of the flora and fauna of local wetlands and parks as teaching aides. And local botanist Bob Allen uses photography to document Orange County’s insects and flowers for lectures and books.

I’ve used some of my photos in similar ways, with some appearing on the interpretive panels at Shipley Nature Center and the Bolsa Chica Conservancy’s interpretive center. Since joining the Photographic Society of Orange County last June, I’ve had a great time improving my photographic skills. With monthly meetings and field trips, the club provides terrific inspiration for personal development.

Normally, Vic teaches class on the night when the club meets, but he was free for last month’s meeting and came with me. Our speaker was Matt Brown, renowned sports photographer. Brown critiqued photos from club members first, then showed us a selection of his fabulous sports photos. You can see his work at www.mattbrownphoto.com.

When I think of Brown’s split-second timing and super-fast shutter speeds that freeze action in seemingly perfect positions, I am humbled. But I’m not into taking pictures of sporting events. I’d rather try to capture what I see in nature, especially things that hold still.

I need time to think about the shot, compose it and shoot multiple times, hoping that something will come out properly exposed and in focus. Sometimes I get lucky and get a decent shot. The more I practice, the luckier I get. The key seems to be to work at it, so I go to the beach, Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, Central Park and Carr Park in search of subjects.

Shooting digital has opened up photography for me like nothing before. When I was shooting slides, I had to conserve shots carefully to save money. It was too easy to blow through film and my photo budget in an hour at Bolsa Chica. I wanted to take good pictures of birds, but I found it extremely difficult when shooting only one or two photos. Digital has changed that. I can shoot dozens of photos of a duck or a goose without spending a penny. It costs money only if I print out the photo, and I do that only for the good shots.

Since joining the photo group, I’ve worked harder at my photography. I’m seeing improvement in my selection of subjects, composition of the photos and the post-production work on my computer.

I’m now looking more carefully at how I crop my photos. I find the subject in the picture and crop down to it, eliminating that which does not contribute to the story in the picture. I look for a simple subject, with rhythm in the lines. I pay attention to the background, making sure that there aren’t distracting things in focus behind my subject, or telephone poles growing out of someone’s head. Then I work with brightness and contrast to get the most pleasing appearance. Sometimes I digitally remove small, distracting spots in the sky or background. And once in a very rare while, I’ll blow the image up larger so I can paint in a bit more detail around the eye of a bird or animal. I really work at my photos, both in taking them and in processing them. And yet I’m nowhere near the skill level of a lot of our club members.

I am utterly in awe of the photographic work of club members like Bill Johnson, Martha Blake, Mike Whitmore, Charlie Brac, George Hagen and many others. Through study of their photographs, I’m pushing myself to do better each month. Mark Singer, one of the club members, has inspired me to enter my work in some exhibits and contests. I won prizes in photo contests back in the ’70s when I was printing my own black-and-white work in the darkroom. I even had a one-woman show of my work before I got distracted by graduate school. After that, I had no free time. My skills deteriorated due to lack of practice.

Now I’m shooting in color, which I find more challenging. I submitted some photos to the Orange County Fair last month, but I don’t know if any will be chosen for exhibit. Submissions were limited to only three photos. In retrospect, I have no idea why I picked the three that I did. They were hardly my strongest images. The minute I submitted them, I had photographer’s remorse, wishing I’d picked a different set.

I recently reviewed my bird and wildlife photos from the past couple of years, looking for pictures that might be worthy of submission to the National Wildlife Federation’s annual photo contest. I reworked the cropping and contrast on a number of pictures that I want to enter, even though I have no expectation of winning. The submission deadline is July 21.

If you’d like to see the work of some of the members of the Photographic Society of Orange County, the club has an exhibit in the gallery on the main floor of the Huntington Beach Central Library. The photos will be up through the end of June, with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday.

VIC LEIPZIG AND LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and environmentalists. They can be reached at [email protected].