Better fishing pictures: Go low

Published Mar 20th 2006

More ways to improve your fishing photos. This time about getting down to the level of your subject, kneeling, getting close to the water, getting a great perspective.

By Martin Joergensen

+
$Ordinary - Taking an image of a kneeling person like this leads to a somewhat boring image. Always be at least as low as your subject unless you intentionally want a bird\'s perspective.$
Ordinary
Ken Bonde Larsen

+

Ambience
Anders Dahl

One of the most common errors I see when I see people taking pictures is that they will be looking down on their subject.
An angler just caught a nice fish and landed it. It's about to be released and the lucky - or skillfiul - guy kneels on the bank. The photographer hovers over the angler and the fish and gets a picture of a couple of shoulders, a cap with a bill that shadows the face and some bank and maybe a bit of water.
What's missing?
How about a face?
What did the fish look like?
Where's the horizon?
How did the place look?

By kneeling down next to the angler you get all this and more.

If you are photographing a standing person, bend your knees to get just a bit lower.
If you are photographing a kneeling person, kneel and bend even further down.
If you are photographing a person lying down, your camera needs to be on the ground.

Not always flattering - Sure, you sometimes look a little stupid.

Not always flattering
Martin Joergensen

The result
Steve Schweitzer

Always take some pictures where the camera is lower than your subject.

	+ $Camera low - Digital cameras with flip-out LCD\'s offer a perfect opportunity of seeing what you get when you hold it as low as this.$ Camera low Martin Joergensen

If you really want to get down, you want to use an angle finder or a camera, where the display can be tilted. That allows you to keep the camera so low that you actually cannot look into it, but using an angler viewer or finder you can still see what's happening.

But remeber to be careful with your low photos, particularly if you use a wide angle lens. The perspective can sometimes become too distorted and result in bodies and faces, which look odd.

The opposite is the case with telephoto lenses. The low stance will almost always give a great perspective to the image. By getting the horizon low and isolating the subject against the sky or background you can get a lot of ambience into your image.

+ Along the ground Martin Joergensen	+ $Free of the horizon - By keeping the camera low, you get the horizon low and isolate people\'s profile against the sky rather than having it cut by a line traversing the center of their body.$ Free of the horizon Martin Joergensen	+ Low and close Martin Joergensen
+ Low perspective Kasper Mühlbach	+ $Low with forground - The camera\'s proximity to the water gives this fish a leading role in the picture.$ Low with forground Kasper Mühlbach	+ $The face - By having a line from the fish to the face a great tension was built into this image. That was obtained by holding the camera lower than the fish\' head$ The face Kasper Mühlbach

You can visit 500th.net, which has much more on photography.

A series

These are all the articles in our series about better fly fishing photography. Read this series and you will learn a lot ebout getting better pictures while fishing. General outdoors pohotographers may also pick up a thing or two...

Better fly-fishing pictures

Reflections. Published March 3rd 2013
Shadows. Published December 21st 2012
Compose. Published November 30th 2012
Fly pictures. Published March 25th 2012
Close to the surface. Published July 29th 2011
Waterscapes. Published January 9th 2011
Pictures of nature. Published March 24th 2010
Shoot the weather. Published March 15th 2010
Gear pictures. Published June 16th 2009
Bent Rods. Published May 2nd 2009
Clear Water. Published February 15th 2009
Casting pictures. Published January 29th 2007
Underexpose. Published October 16th 2006
Macro. Published August 30th 2006
Jump!. Published June 21st 2006
Use a tripod. Published June 1st 2006
Glorious light. Published May 24th 2006
Fishy pictures. Published May 4th 2006
Bring it!. Published April 26th 2006
Perfect Camera. Published April 9th 2006
Use a fill flash. Published March 24th 2006
Go low. Published March 20th 2006
Go close. Published March 16th 2006
Histograms not scheduled for publishing yet.

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User comments

From: mike Michaelis · Ojm999·at·gmail.com Link
Submitted March 8th 2012

wish that lucky guy was me!!

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