The big trout perspective

The picture of the monster trout on the previous blog made some people suspicious. Was the picture somehow manipulated? Or was the fish really that big? The answer to both questions is yes. The picture has been digitally manipulated, but the size of the fish is real.

We’ve had countless discussions about how a picture of a catch should be taken. A big and fat fish appears big, fat and beautiful in a good photo, but you can also ruin the shot pretty easily.

One of the biggest and prettiest trout I ever caught was captured on camera. Too bad my pose was terrible as I’m blocking the view to the fish with my arm. The trout is also partially under water which makes it even more difficult to admire the fat and firm belly of the fish:

Joona blocking the trout

Here are some hint for better pictures:

• take a tight shot with the fisherman and the fish

• if you´re going to release the fish, keep it in the net under the water and lift it up quickly for the shot before release

• don’t block the view of the fish with your body, arms or fingers

• keep the fish clean, and rinse it with water

• use a wide angle lens and hold the fish slightly in front of you: a wide angle lens makes objects closer to the camera appear bigger (but that goes with your fingers too!)

• look through the camera viewfinder/screen and try different angles to find the one that looks best

One of the lakes we were fishing was overpopulated by small trout. We caught some trout for dinner, and took a couple of photos of a 25 cm trout with a regular compact camera with a wide angle lens. The picture doesn’t lie, or does it?

Trout in front of Håvard

Håvard in front of the trout

Finally, some photos from different points of view:

The photoshopping of the trout? The picture was cropped, the line was ”removed” from the picture and Håvard’s finger tips were cut in from another photo. But the fish is in natural size. It’s all about perspective.

This was the trick

The original