natura Cynmark

Equipment, technique and process

Natura Fotografia

From field observation to photographic records, illustrations and technical publications.

Much of my photographic archive comes from exploring Trinidad and Tobago: its cultivated fields, forests, rivers, coastline and the plants and animals that inhabit them. The collection ranges from wide views of the landscape to close studies of flowers, insects, fruit and the work that goes into producing food.

My approach to photography owes a good deal to my engineering and technical writing background. In the field I am interested not only in the appearance of a subject, but in how it is put together, where it occurs and what a photograph can tell us about it. A good collection should allow someone who was not there to examine the subject for themselves.

These pages describe the equipment and methods I use, and how I organise photographic material for later use in articles, technical documentation, maps and other digital publications. Natura is also an example of that process in practice.

Equipment

A working full-frame system

The Canon body and the four lenses behind the collection, what each one is for, and the photographs made with it.

Open equipment

Technique

Photographing a subject so it can be understood

Scale and sequence, depth of field, light and colour, and wide views: how each is used to make a photograph informative.

Open technique

Workflow

From the field to the archive, and into print

Planning, Lightroom, two ways of organising the same photographs, location, and how this site is published from the catalogue.

Open workflow

A continuing collection

This is a working account of the equipment and methods behind Natura. I will be adding my own equipment photographs, examples of photographic techniques and further material from the archive as the collection develops.

Equipment photographs and technique examples from outside the Natura archive are marked as reference photographs. Technical specifications are based on the manufacturers' published information.

Technical references