Take a perfect outdoor snaphot
Smartphones have turned all hunters and anglers into photographers whose devices enable them to take publication-quality images.
It’s hard to put down a fishing rod to take photos, but investing a small amount of time makes all the difference between shooting amateur snapshots and professional photographs.
First, you have to think like a photographer. That means you are always looking for interesting things to shoot. A unique cast of light should trigger your predatory photographic impulse.
For example, while fishing for trout on the White River near Ranchette, I drifted past a house on a bluff with a triangular arrangement of large windows. At a certain place, the late afternoon sunlight hit those windows like a bomb burst. It took multiple drifts to get the right starburst effect without resorting to using a starburst lens filter.
I shot that pic with a 35mm camera, but the principle is the same. If you see it, don’t think about it. Just shoot it.
Another example of a memorable snap shot occurred again on the White River while fishing with Bill Eldridge of Benton and fishing guide Craig Yowell. I was actually playing a trout when I glimpsed a bald eagle from the corner of my periphery. Instinctively, and with the other hand still grasping the fishing rod, I grabbed my 35mm and snapped an in-focus photo of the eagle snatching a trout from the water. That was a great day of fishing. We caught a lot of big brown trout, but Yowell remembers that photo more than any of the fish we caught.
Wait a minute. This article is supposed to be about shooting smartphone photos. Again, the same principles apply.
On opening day of dove season several years ago, I was walking behind Dr. Bob McGowan when he raised his gun to swing on a dove. My phone camera was already open. I raised the camera and shot a photo of McGowan folding a dove in mid flight. Everything in that image was clear. There was tension in McGowan’s form. The camera captured a puff of smoke from his shotgun barrel, and the payoff was a puff of feathers against a bright blue sky with a dove in focus tumbling in front. I’ve shot hundreds of dove hunting photos, including many in Argentina where I had thousands of opportunities. That phone pic of McGowan is one of my top 10 best.
Every shot doesn’t have to be an action shot. Everything in a boat or in a hunting scene is a potential photo image. A shotgun propped against a chair in a dove field with an Arkansas Razorbacks ballcap or an Arkansas State Red Wolves ballcap dangling from the muzzle and a bottle of water in the chair is a story within a story.
Three or four doves on the ground amid a pile of spent shotgun hulls and a shotgun in the foreground tells a story. On shots like that, arrange all of those elements tightly and focus on the shotgun’s receiver. The distinctive humped back of an old Browning Auto-5 and a pile of purple 16-gauge hulls makes for a mighty cool image. Arrange “props” so that the light hits them right. Avoid shooting in direct sunlight that creates glare.
Fly fishing is a fabulous subject for photography. Fly line is usually bright yellow or bright green, and it makes wide, brilliant, graceful loops. With soft backlighting, it’s like photographing a light show. You can do the same thing with regular monofilament fishing line. When the light catches it, it looks like small lightning bolts. It makes for indelible images that do not suffer a bit for lack of a fish.
You can also shoot images of mundane activities we take for granted, like painting a crappie lure with a dye pen or an angler inspecting a crankbait. One of my favorite images was from a crappie fishing trip at DeGray Lake, when I shot a photo of Grant Westmoreland and former U.S. Rep. Mike Ross eating Vienna sausages and crackers during a snack break.
A great thing about smartphone photography is that you can enhance an image instantly. With the iPhone’s edit feature, you can increase or reduce exposure and contrast, brightness and vibrancy. You can improve saturation, warmth and tint. You can manipulate shadows and highlights. You can also sharpen images.
Photography apps contain a lot of additional filters that enable you to customize an image.
The Boy Scout motto is a photographer’s mission state. Be prepared. A memorable photographic opportunity can appear in an instant. Keep your camera app open and seize the moment when it occurs. Those moments will chronicle a complete record of your trip to go along with the happy “hero” shots of people displaying fish and game.