Taking Fish Photos…

Have you ever been fishing with a buddy, catch a nice fish...get a great photo and then go home to find out your photo just didn't capture what you really thought of your fish?  I usually don't do a lot of "How-To" type of postings...I find them generally boring with little to learn.  With that said I have to tell a story as to why I feel the need to put this into words.

I had a guide trip with some really cool fisherman a couple of weeks ago and one of the guys caught a nice brown...not huge but nice for sure.  We start shooting photos and re-check them and it just wasn't "there" the fish was nice but in the photos it seemed like a dink.  One last photo, I held the fish and BOOM it actually 'looked' like the fish we were holding and slightly drooling over.  What was the difference...I know I am a 'touch' on the short side but will that really make a fish look THAT much different??

This photo is the original photo, the grip and grin with the angler:

You can tell...the fish has some girth, and is decently long.  "Nice fish" you might say.

Here is the photo of me holding the same exact fish:

"NICE!"  You might say now....

The difference?  The fish is filling the frame and Angle, Angle, ANGLE!   The best way to get a photo of a decent fish is to angle the head toward the camera but still get the beautiful colors down the side, showing the girth of the fish as "tall" (if that makes sense.) 

We have all seen those photos where the angler is holding the fish completely straight-armed as close to the camera as possible and they turn out to be the most awkward looking photos ever and could, quite possibly, make a nice fish photo look horrible. 

Now you know that I, as a guide on the North Fork of the White River, never have fisherman catch nice fish...I just show them how to hold the fish to make it 'look' better

(again, same fish)