Good photography

I have seen lots of great patterns in person at tying shows, shops, in friends fly boxes, etc. It is just a shame that few of them look even half as good on the internet, in a photo or in print. I mean, a fly is only as good as the image it leaves in your mind - and getting a first view of a great fly that is out of focus, has a distracting background, bad lighting or any other number of factors that make a photograph look horrible - ruins the fly.

I have stolen lots of photos online of nicely tied and more importantly PHOTOGRAPHED flies. It's too bad I have run out of material to post here. I mean, there are numerous beautiful flies out there - but beautiful photos of those flies do not exist - otherwise they would be posted here.

This is a call to all of you fly tyers out there - take the time and properly photograph your flies. Be creative, use the macros setting (all cameras have one - learn to use it correctly), select cool backgrounds and get good lighting. I created a lighting box for my flies - I use a regular lamp, a flash light, a tin foil base and a normal point and shoot camera to take pictures of my flies. And although my flies aren't professional quality, they are still miles ahead of most of the crap you see posted in the Fly Tying Forums database.

Just by looking at some of the photos on this blog you can see what makes a good photo - pure white background with the fly sitting on it works great (shadows sometimes create some great effect), a multi colored photo like the stonefly below (brings out the color in the fly), a piece of wood with the flies stuck into them (the tone of the wood catches the eye) or simply showing the bug on your fly rod/reel (in action photos are classy).

Here are a couple of photos that I shot that I really like - notice that they all are a bit of the same, but all are a bit unique (focus, lighting, shadows, contrast, how the flies are situated).