Assignment 5 Personal Project

The Proboscis Monkey.

My personal project.

In advance , I agreed with my tutor to do wild life. I have to write a brief on each of Ten photographs.  This I started to accumulate pictures of the wild life in Borneo.
My recent journey to Brunei, sadly was a disappointment, Due to the devastating depletion of rain forrest.

This is a short story of the life of the Proboscis monkey.

Borneo is one of three largest islands in the world. Set between Australia and main land china in the south china sea.

The Island is surrounded by Indonesia and the Philippines.
I live in Sabah, The land beneath the wind. One of three countries in Borneo. The Climate is average 30c hot sun in the morning and tropical storms later in the day. Due to climate change. This is rapidly changing.  But thats another story for later reading.

There are many places in Borneo to see these amazing creatures. But Brunei is, or was one of my favourites. Due to its easy and affordable location.

For now I will tell you about one of the most strange indigenous species of monkey. Only found in Borneo.
Fig1:
Not as threatened as the Orang Utan and the Gibbon.  Nevertheless, It is severely being endangered from loss of habitat.   This was once dense mangrove  forrest. With over hangs that the proboscis monkeys used to jump .



So, shocked at the sight of this and disheartened as I am. I took my 17-40 WA as I was armed with the 400 mm. Took this shot to show the world what has been damaged. Lost for ever. 
One of the most challenging kind of photography is wild life. Not sat waiting for the shot in some camouflaged hide. You Moving in a boat. Stopping and going. Acting on spontaneous action. As you twist in the right direction. You need good balance as well as fast reactions. Its neck and back aching as well as so rewarding. 

Fig 2:

Once lush forrest full of vegetation. The Brunei river trip has been made bare. And many of the wonderful bird life has been lost.
This was cleared to make way for a road construction. I was under the assumption that the Sultan stopped deforestation.

I took this shot to show what dredging has done to the trees. Leaving little food and shelter for wild life. 

Proboscis monkeys are social creatures. Family orientated. Consisting of one mail and one main female with others close by. The male Is easily recognised. As he sits high. Proudly showing off his nose and sexual parts. The nose normally reflects other things that make him dominant. Hens the name Proboscis. Meaning nose. He  likes to keep his wives around him. Well with in sight, to protect from other young males. Known as bachelor scouts.
The young males hunt in packs, And others may be solitary.  To find young females  and new territory.
                                                       
A Large male sits proud , marking territory.
Fig 3: ISO 500 290 mm 30d 1/1000 f11

Often with wild life photography. Its hard to get the perfect shot from over hangs, branches and restricted lighting.  taken at the time with 8MP 30d 

About as large, and dominant as they get. This photograph was taken two years ago, Of and old proud male, when the area was lush in vegetation.  and at this point, as the above photo taken of the clearing. his was about 30ft wide.  Both sides of the river. These Monkeys have been seen to swim across rivers. They are good at swimming, so I have been told. Although I have never seen this. I know they try to avoid being in the water. However, when territory is at risk, or food is short. hey will find a narrow crossing to forage for better resources. Some times they miss or so its been said jump into the water. I think this is just desperation to get to the other side. As Crocodiles lay in wait, in many areas.  

Even here , not to far away, Peoples homes had already been built. having influence, brushing shoulders with them.  

Using a 70 to 200 2.6 with a 2 x converter. 

Here I managed to capture the lovely coat they have. Like a fur jacket.

There are two spices through out Borneo. They range in Colour. From Greyish brow to orange. 

Fig 4: ISO 500 400 mm 7.1 1/400 30d

Capturing the hole beauty of the handsome strange monkey, As i wanted to show the detail and texture of their coats. The hole goal in wild lief photography. Is to get the perfect shot that know one els has.  

Its good to take a private trip to see these wonderful animals, As if your quiet , you can hear the low tone grunts they make. If challenged or threatened, they will shout! A!A ! sharply.

Its rare to find Proboscis Monkeys so close.  .  They are becoming used to Humans. 

Diet. 

Its important to the proboscis Monkey to have fresh young leaves to eat. They spend much of their time, high in the trees, searching out the young leaves, that are very acidic. 

As the day heats up. They would normally go further into the forrest. Or find shade. Here,  they get a little more active , to find trees where there are more young leaves. As less trees. More time is spent looking for food. 

The rest of the photographs from here on, As the fist two FIG 1 and 2 . were taken, 18th Nov 2011         

Fig 5: ISO 250 F8   1/500 140mm 7d

 Its god to know their habits so you can knowingly predict the action. If one jumps , there will be another to follow. My aim has been for a long time , to capture one jumping with out blur. This time I took a few and some GD video. 

Reason being, they have such large bellies, is that they are full of Enzymes to digest the favourite food.  

 being, they have such large bellies, They have much more of a chemistry then us to break down those, what may even be poison to us, various young leaves.    

 During Drought, It was discovered, the  acid leaves are not the only food that proboscis monkeys eats.  They have been know to take small rodents. And also, when you turn you back. to claim the food of your plate. if you happen to live near by. Other then that. Small insects.

  Proboscis Monkey like to stay high in the trees. They only come down to drink. They are mostly found by small rivers. That are near to the coast. But this little family, has adapted to using what bushes and fallen branches they have, They jump up and down on the branch, to use there acrobatic leaps across,  whats left of their home. To get to better feeding areas.

Fig 6: ISO 1250 f 5.6 1/400 stpped down 305 MM 7d

A mother sits with her young, his give a nice touch to family bonding. 

Again , I had stopped down a bit to much . In doing so with such a high ISO, sacrificed definition for  noise. Acting fast to get this shot. Some adjusting in aperture. saved the the image. 

The female, as seen here has a much smaller nose, Although big for any monkey. And pointed. They nurse their young for some time. The females become sexually active after 5 ears. 

Sadly the reduction of the bread has pushed them into the  the  endangered  

animals. In the last 20 yeas, reductions by more then 50% And growing, As an contuse to spread and develop what we call so called progress. 

I don't like using Hi ISO but here it was dark. As the clouded stormy sky softened the light. 

Fig 7: ISO 1250 1/400 f 5.6   270mm 7d 

The family being shown the way.
As others uses precaution, with their young. Others like to trapeze .

Fig8: ISO 1250 f 5.6 1/400 7d

Captured in a set of 5 frames. In mid air. using 7D 

As the day draws to an end. The hot Borneo sun drops. The lighting becomes low and fiery golden. The Proboscis monkeys take their last drink, before night falls. 

Finding the highest, resting places in the tree tops. making photography quite hard . If your lucky. The sun will fall on them as they settle in for the night. High and away from danger. 

Shooting at this time. Takes trial and luck. As for capturing moving objects in low light. You need to predict when things happen. And be ready. You may not have your camera set right . As I was photographing back lit shots, I forgot to up the aperture as it was closed down. 

I still managed to capture this flying monkey. Freezing in action. At a high ISO. 

The sun starts to glow, as it drops behind the progress of man,  lighting up their orange coats, to a wonderful golden colour. The hole set become golden. This is when you must act fast. As there is such a small window of less then 15-20 min to capture any more photographs. 

With High ISO 1250 using 400 mm lens with only 5,6 to work with. This image still holds and speaks for its self. 

Fig 9: SO f 5.6 1/400   400mm 7d 

Capturing this was a task. lying in the bout , and the boats movement. Low light. 
Trying to steady the lens. As the subject watches my every move. 
Fig 10: ISO 125 F6.3 1/400 300 mm 7d

 Last of many , I chose this due to the expression . Like the proboscis monkey is expressing "wow"! in excitement of the perfect find. And the separation from the blurred tree in the back ground, gave depth. A kind of 3d effect that so many like 

 And the as light dropped , We left the area. As we did so, moving towards the grind of humanity.  All the Egrets, Hundreds of them, flocked to the bushy trees, by the waters edge. Perched for the night. I hope, on my next return, The Proboscis Monkey will still be there. so i can get that perfect shot. 

Statement in brief :

This is my chosen ten. That I chose from many photographs.  Not to be static in approach.  to capture the realism of their habitat.  To give a flow, and un repetitive look at the wonders of the proboscis monkeys life. In view of how they live. Showing texture , Environment. The habitat they live in.  Lighting. A little restricting with just 10 photographs. That I managed to select, by placing them into folders . flagging wheat is good and not just a monkey in a tree. In looking at each photo. My thought focused on the story to take place.  As I have written up here. As I up loaded each photograph, The story came together. As a Message to the world. If you love wild life, speak out now. Write to governments t help protect what we have left. Earth is their home too.   

Closing Conclusion:

I am still a little baffled in the way noise occurs in different lighting conditions. 

Although many of these pictures would never have been able captured on film.

The ISO in DSLRs allows freezing of motion.  In low light. still the rule of thumb in low lighting. Use the lowest shutter speed that the lens allows at full open aperture . And use the lowest ISO light will allow.  Normally the shutter speed is that one higher then the focal length of the lens. To prevent hand shake. 

As on this assignment, All elements of moving subjects , changing light and sat in a small moving boat Put all knowledge in knowing my tools to the test.  

exercise 25 Web Album

Please go to www.amphibious-photographer.com

My web site . links to blogs and Albums are all there.

Thank you. 

Exercise 24 Sharpening for print

For this exercise we are looking at sharping .

Taking  3 photographs. A Portrait. 

photo 1 as un sharpened control. 

Photo 2 sharpen to 33%      

Photo 3 sharpen  @ 75%

This shows better definition and some increase in  contrast as well.

Now to observe the prints.

Assignment 4 final Is It real.

Assignment 4. Real or fake.

Finally after several trials. Much research, going through many photographs. looking for something I can work with.
I set a file aside, filling it with pictures so I could get some inspiration from.  Looking for a subject I could put together, that looked convincing.

In the end selection, I chose a man on a bike. A Probosci's monkey in a tree.
Indigenous only to Borneo.

To do this for the combining of the two. Many layers and adjustments were taken.
Starting with Monkey: Separating the subject from the background, to separating limbs to layers, Shading, adjustment of tone and contrast, adding and resizing layers.

The only adjustment I could not find, that I have seen on TVin use is a 3D adjustment.   I would like to have turned the Monkey slightly away.
Nevertheless, with some perseverance, I managed to bring this delightful image to life.

 How was it done?

Once I manage to break up the monkey's body into layers. As shown in Fig 1  This way I can work with each part to manipulate them to perspective.

Fig:1

Then to adjust the bike image.
My first observation was to:
To correct the direction of the bike by flipping the image. Then realising the composition of the bike was leading out of the picture.
I used the Quick selection to move the bike back. Ten rebuildings the road. Then do the same to take the post. taking it away on the far right.



Next:
To take the backdrop and clean up the edges of the monkey.

Placing the monkey onto the bike. The sizing it to match. I could then see where and what I needed to take, and ad in layers.
As seen here in the screenshot. A sequence of images that brought the image together.
Once the layers were in place and adjusted. The layers were flattened.
Some clone and retouching done on the legs, and arms and the body, to make it look real. making layers of just the arms and sections of the leg. turning them and then using clone soft brush to blend.
Another Layer of the bike was added to cover any points that were taken away. When using the eraser tool, the history brush would not restore.

From there, more rebuilding of the legs. tuning, Placement.
Last of all feathering, using softer brushes and cloning, to blend the image layers together. Making fingers. The leg was the hardest and foot in the sandal.

At each stage, I saved, or (save as), renaming each set. So any adjustment that went wrong or required further adjustment may be made, and not lost.

Finally. Flatten and save to Jpeg.


The tail I did not use.

Even after this, Some floors were noticed.  So I tidied up repetitive marks.

Then to make it a front page cover for a magazine.

First to make another new canvas. Resize for the average magazine, Not known.

I chose :














Then to reduce the above image and make a border.
Imports some jungle as an outer frame,
Ad Title
Caption, reintroduce helmet layer. Toad a bit of depth.
Clean up. Ad text.
Ad frog and snake, to liven the page up. Using the same above technique.

As seen here:

Final product for publication.

I hope to publish this now with a write up on what I encountered this week in Borneo, of the poor Proboscis monkeys. Losing their habitat. From the vast deforestation making way for new roads.

Real or fake assignment 2ned attempt

A new start and new ideas.