What makes our work different?
When people see our work, or pick up Wildflower Country, they realise there is something special going on with the photographs—they are extremely clear and they have a lot of depth.
Sunlit Beach Barringtonia on the forest floor on the edge of the Coral Sea. Barringtonia asiatica, open during the night, attracting moths, beetles and even small bats. By mid-morning of the next day the flowers fall, becoming part of the mosaic of the forest floor. HDRI-DOF, 15 exposures. (© Stanley & Kaisa Breeden, All rights reserved)
They may not realise though, that this is because most of our pictures are focus blends (“focus stacks”) of 5, sometimes up to 20 or more photographs. We take many photographs of the one subject at different focal lengths, creating focal ‘slices’ that are then blended using software originally designed for microscopy photography.
That’s why you can actually look into the pictures and study them. It is photography much closer to human vision than traditional film photography.
One technique that Kaisa pioneered was combining HDRI (High Dynamic Range Imaging) with DOF (Focus Stacking, or extended Depth of Field) photography. We call it HDRI-DOF. This gives you details throughout the entire tonal range of a subject: from the deepest shadows to the lightest highlights, and combines it with focus stacking for depth. It is a very tricky technique especially when photographing out in the wild as we do and in natural light.
The reason we go to such lengths is because our aim is to produce pictures that are so clear and detailed, so true to human vision, that you feel you could reach out and touch them—an almost cinematic experience.
The same is true for our writing: we strive to evoke the same feelings in the reader that we sense when we are out in nature.
