Outdoor Photography Canada

Animals in Motion

*Finalists in no particular order

Fly By, or the end of a chase"
Copyright © Ulli Hoeger 

Hovering Common Tern
Copyright © Trooper 

Award-winning blind photographer discusses two of her favourite photos

Tara Miller may be legally blind, but her mind’s eye sees 20/20. And the two photos pictured here are proof of that.

  Miller couldn’t see exactly what she was photographing in either case. She has just six percent vision in her left eye — she sees through a small “hole” surrounded by blurriness — and none in her right. But the Manitoba-based commercial photographer knew the photos she wanted to capture; she could see them in her head. And when she got home and enlarged the images by 200 percent, she wasn’t disappointed.

Photo: ©Darwin Wiggett

I have spent a career in photography trying to get the sharpest photos possible. I use heavy tripods, mirror lock-up, cable releases and the sharpest aperture settings possible on the best lenses I can afford. In short, I’m a sharpness freak and I’m not happy unless my images are more than knife-edge sharp! But sometimes sharpness isn’t the point because sharpness can kill the mood and emotion of a photo. Soft can be beautiful. Soft is ethereal and light; soft is inviting. So try out these four techniques to give your images a softer, more artistic rendering.

Photo: ©Paul Burwell  Loon

There are few things more frustrating to a photographer than when their camera won’t auto focus or when it gets the focus wrong. In this column, we’ll take a look at exactly how auto focus works in today’s digital cameras and what you can do to increase the odds of getting your photos in focus the way you imagined when you made the photographs.

To read Paul Burwell's column please pick up the current issue of OPC today!