“The Swamp” – St. Catherine Creek NWR

After visiting Vicksburg National Military Park and the Vicksburg National Cemetery (my wife’s great-great-grandfather who died in the Civil War is buried there) we took an indirect route back home. Along the way we stopped at St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge near Natchez. My wife is a bit of a “birder” and I like to take photographs so this was a win-win situation for us. The biggest win for us was when we stopped at was simply called “The Swamp” because it came with a surprise.

The Composition

Although, “The Swamp”, is not an especially unique name, it is a very accurate description. Across a small area of open water were beautiful tall cypress trees. Behind this first group of cypress trees were more trees but also undergrowth. Capping the whole scene were fantastic billowing clouds in the lower sky.

I took a number of shots in both a portrait and landscape orientation. I think landscape orientation was best even though it cut the tops of the trees. For me this tighter framing emphasized the details in the mass of the vegetation. It’s the heart of the scene. Additionally, if I used a portrait orientation to include all of the trees it resulted in a significant portion of the scene devoted to the spindly tree tops in an unappealing section of the sky.

Taking The Shot

The gear and settings for this shot were:

• Canon 5D Mk III, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Lens at 75mm
• 1/60 seconds at f/16, ISO 100, hand-held

Post-Processing

The post-processing for this shot was pretty simple. It started with my usual check for sensor spots in Adobe Lightroom. I then set my white and black points, added some vibrance and clarity and made small adjustments to the highlight and shadow and topped it all off with a bit of sharpening. Given that the sky was a deep blue, and the green vegetation was not overly dark there really was no need for Photoshop on this photo. From Lightroom I took it into Nik Silver Efex and using the yellow filter adjusted the image to get the tonal contrast I wanted with the vegetation. Bringing it back into Lightroom I used a gradient filter on the water to darken it and finished with minor tweaks to clarity, highlights and shadows.

The Surprise

It wasn’t till I started processing the image in black and white that I found the surprise. Near the top of one of the trees (second from the left) that extend all the way to the top of the frame is a Wood Stork. It’s standing there, posing, as nicely as can be. I didn’t really see it when I was taking the shot nor when I saw the image in color. This just illustrates that sometimes color can be a distraction. Black and white eliminates the color distraction and allows us to see what is there. This was a nice surprise.

Leave A Comment And Share

I’d love to hear your comments and feedback on this post. I hope it was helpful. What surprises have you found when making black and white photos? Please leave a comment in the comment box below.

Also, if you like this post please share on Facebook and Twitter.