“Light makes a photograph. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light.
Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the (a) key to photography.”

So said George Eastman. Founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, and  man who went on to amass a fortune at his death that, today would be around $2 Billion.

I wondered for all that, if there was a collection of photographs somewhere taken by a man who Embraced, Admired, Loved and Knew light.
But sad to say he seems to have left very little of a body of work that could be said to be the photography of George Eastman.

Here is a link to an image of Eastman using a Kodak Number 2 camera while on board the S. S. Gallia in 1890
George_Eastman_(F._Church_1890).jpg

He was enamoured with motion pictures and carried a 16mm camera on his travels. From those journeys a number of documentaries of various places were made in the 1920s. He also regularly travelled to Game Hunting Safaris in Africa.
I can recall seeing some book or documentary once, that showed Eastman, the ‘White Hunter’ in suitable garb posing around the bodies of dead beasts, but no doubt the majority of those photos would have been taken by his handlers.
Here is a link to one from the George Eastman House site. 2007-0007-0127-safari-ge-and-villager.jpg

We had been with BirdLife Werribee, formerly and now informally  known “Werribee Wagtails” on a day outing to Ocean Grove.

The group was walking around Blue Waters Lake Reserve and had stopped to see several Nankeen Night Herons in an old willow tree, with its twisted branches and long fringes that made sighting just that bit difficult.

Also flying past down the centre of the lake from time to time were Royal Spoonbills.  They had to sun behind them and looked a treat in brilliant white against the shady far shore of the lake.
I lost interest in hard to see Herons and became enthralled with both the spoonbills and the light so beautifully cascading through the feathers.

Exposure for such scenes is at best fraught with complications. As EE is known to say.  “If I get the feather detail right, the background gets lost. If I keep the surrounds then the contrast takes out the feather details.” Or some combination of those words that expresses the difficulty of backlighting.

No hero lecture here. I choose exposure for the feathers, and will worry about where the background goes when I work out the mood and feel that I want from the moment.  That is a slider thing. I make no apologies.  Give me Photoshop with layers, layer masks, paintbrush, and a Curves setting and  that’s me for post production in the digital darkroom.

How to set the exposure right for the wings?  See my blog sometime back on Dean Collins.

I managed several birds on the day, and at first thought I’d like to have the head and neck showing. But in the end, I selected this one as the shape and curve of the wings is Satur poetic.

Enjoy