Remnants of a fish die

[GB1]

My travels took me over to the Salton Sea again the other day... Looks like they never hired anyone to clean up the shore after their March/April fish die out there. For you fish lovers, included is a fun shot of my cousin taking a bite.

I might make it out there again over Mem Day -- Any suggestions for photos with more impact?

GB

[livin4lax09]

this may be a stupid question...but why all the dead fish? whats the cause of it?

[jbaldocchi]

Did it smell as good as it looks?

Jim B.

[GB1]

Brent - Not even remotely trying to imitate a biologist or environmental engineer, but I've heard that the water goes "anaerobic" (oxygen deprived) when there's an algae bloom. The algae suck all the O2 out of the water, and the fish stand the chance of suffercation. The good news is that although all these fish died, it's a fairly normal occurance at the SS and that most of the fish are still alive.

But at least the folks that live round there could have someone clean the place up, eh? It's been like that since at least March

Jim, it stunk a little, but not nearly as bad as back in March. After 15 minutes I hardly even noticed it anymore

gb

[Mr Yuck]

I would get a mini tripod over there and HDR them, or do a fake HDR from a RAW.

Surprise surprise.

I'd also like to see a closer and lower perspective, maybe shoot different angles on the unfortunate fishes, seems that we naturally shoot them head on, why not experiment with other angles?

of these, #1 is my favorite. #3 is fun, but I'd like to see a slightly more head on angle. Or some other angle to show what it is that he's "eating" (profile/small size looks like a piece of bread to me)

[GB1]

MR -- I agree about the angle. I didn't want to make him pose too long though.

I'll try that low angle approach. I do have a macro too Time to use it. I will have to read up on the HDR thing cause I've never tried it. I also want to try a pano with my new DSLR. I tried one on the VA beach shore but since the waves differed with each shot it came out terrible... maybe I can recover something though.

GB

[Mr Yuck]

use hugin, enblend, and autopano-sift for your panos and you'll be more impressed, also, to avoid seams in a pano, use the tip of the lens as your rotation point, keep it in the same spot.

http://www.nodalninja.com/

check out the gif at the bottom of the page for a visual example of what I'm talking about. If you're really dedicated, you could pick up a pano tripod head such as the nodal ninja, or even make your own, my solution is going to involve a string, a hair tie, and a weight.

If you dont plan on doing HDR right away, shoot in RAW so you can "fake" the HDR later.

[GB1]

MY - huh? were you speakin' English there.? "hugin, enblend, and autopano-sift"... hmm. ok. "to avoid seams in a pano, use the tip of the lens as your rotation point, keep it in the same spot." huh again? tip of your lens? What I normally do is lock the tripod down real well and rotate about the z axis (the elevation axis). I like that fancy tripod head but it seems like it's for a more advanced panner than I, allowing you to pan in multiple degrees of freedom. one day maybe.

I will read up on HDR before I head out. I've liked what I've seen on this site wrt to it, so I'm ready to try it. Thks for the tips. -GB

[GB1]

A few more images of the decaying fish...

[CLKunst]

Oh GB! You made him touch it! BLARGH!

Nice to know that the smell has lessened somewhat. If you're still looking for wild ideas to photograph dead fish by why not try that layered RBG technique that you showed us a while back? It will certainly ramp up the surreal factor of an already disturbing scene. I also second the macro idea, get all those crusty details. Have fun!