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SkipComment by Skip: Kiss a Lot of Frogs
This title describes the learning experience I went through, putting this shot togetherâespecially considering I have done nothing like this before.
First, we had to catch the frogs. They primarily come out at night. It took us about 30 minutes to snag eight of them. We kept them in a covered bucket overnight (donât worryâfrogs have the ability to simulate hibernation at the drop of a hat; they can shut down their systems to accommodate lack of air, food, and water. Overnighting it in a bucket was not going to unduly stress them.) The next morning, I found two more hanging around the front steps, giving me ten to work with.
Next, I needed an outdoor studio. I first tried using parts from an unassembled white desk. I printed out the word âKissâ and dropped them in the bottom. Then we dropped in the frogs. I quickly realized I had used the wrong font. I had to stop shooting to go reprint âKissâ in a better font. It didnât matter: the results were ugly, ugly, ugly. The frogs jumped, the words slid. Even after I taped the words down it was ugly. It took about 60 shots before I realized this was not working.
So, I decided to use a bankerâs box (one of those collapsible document boxes). I taped white paper on the bottom and two of the sides, then taped the words onto the white paper. Then I cut a whole for the camera lens. This looked like it would work.
In went the frogs. Out jumped the frogs.
I put saran wrap over the top of the box. I used the box lid to herd the frogs into the target corner. The frogs jumped and were trapped by the saran wrap. My daughter gently nudged them back into the box. I began clicking away. Every now and then, Iâd try a different shutter speed or aperture, but I was primarily focused on trying to capture as many frogs as possible per image. I snapped off about 350 images in about 12 minutes. Almost all the images were shot at F/10, with shutter speeds ranging from 1/80 to 1/320.
That was the easy part.
Having shot film for the past 25+ years, I am fairly new to digital photography. I just recently purchased PhotoShop CS, but have not really figured it out yet. But, since this was an âopenâ competition, subject to Basic Editing rules, I figured that post-processing would not be that big a deal.
After a couple hours of picking through and playing with frog pictures, I thought I would need to wrap my head with duct-tape, so that when it exploded, I would be able to find most of the parts.
The hard part was finding a image that would work within the confines of the rules. In reality, I could have made it a lot easier on myself had I spent more time putting my studio together. Paying attention to detail makes all the difference in the world. The tape marks and paper joins could easily have been avoided, which would have led to images not requiring as much brightening, contrasting, and cropping.
While I am absolutely thrilled with the peer recognition, I am more excited about what I learned from the process:
1) take time to work through everything ahead of time
2) take time to take care of all the little details that can hurt the shot
3) take lots and lots of images
4) donât be afraid to start over it itâs not working out
5) when working with small, live animals, be patient (and refrain from even considering Krazy Glue).
Outtakes and Polishing
Amazing what you can do with spot editing (as well as getting some experience with PhotoShop)â¦
more shotsMessage edited by author 2005-05-25 04:59:32. 
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