Photo & Digital Art Gallery - Honorable Mention

How many of us haven’t found ourselves with photos that could have been something special, but because of an error in exposure or execution the result was a missed opportunity? I have a folder of images that I cannot bear to delete, filled with images that in a perfect world are perfectly exposed, executed, and in a word, amazing. I know it is silly to keep these images, but once in a while I like to take one and pull it into Photoshop just to see what I can get out of it. I took this portrait of an American black bear (Ursus americanus) at Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, Missouri. It was in a large, natural ex-closure relaxing under a canopy of trees, trees that provided a nice filtered light at midday. The bear was stationary, so I had exposure dialed in manually began shooting. I was using a Nikon D70 with a Sigma 500/f4 telephoto lens, the best equipment I could afford at the time. Most of the images were uninteresting side profile shots. I knew if the bear would turn my direction the lighting would make for a nice frame filling portrait with great textured fur and a little dappled sunlight on his face. I was shooting at an ISO of 800 to stop any action that might occur, but this left little room for error regarding exposure due to excessive noise. Suddenly, the bear looked my way moving towards me, giving me exactly the shot I envisioned. I had to act fast. I wheeled into position and started firing off a series of shots, knowing they would be great. When I stopped shooting, the bear had moved into bright midday sun and the moment was gone. I immediately started to look at the images in my LCD, my smiles turned quickly into sighs. In my rush to get the photos I forgot to double check my exposure settings! The light was much brighter where the bear passed by me, and all my shots were severely underexposed. No amount of tinkering could save these images. Brightening them enough to see the bear clearly would have way too much noise to be useable. Into my folder of missed opportunities these images went, until one rainy day I began playing this one in Photoshop and a filter called Fractalius. This filter lets me manipulate the pixels, in so many ways, but the general effect is to make a photograph not look like a photograph. I play with a copy of the original photo until I like it, and then blend it into the original image. The result is an image that looks like a painting with the detail of a photograph. It works best with furry critters, and this is a prime example of when it worked well. And it helped me save a cherished moment from my folder of missed opportunities.

About the Photographer: Mundy Hackett’s photographic style blends the beauty of photography with the artistry of painting. He is a trained biologist, and enjoys taking pictures of just about everything in the woods around his home. He is an award winning photographer and published author who lives with his wife along the Chickahominy River in southeastern Virginia. His work can be viewed at www.mundyhackett.com.