Animal Photography

Photographing animals has always been an area of photography that I have wanted to explore, so recently I set out with my camera with the intention of capturing portraits of animals. Not only did I develop my knowledge within this area of photography whilst conducting this project, I managed to produce some impressive portraits of animals which you can see in this post. I have also included a section within this post titled, `Top Tips for Photographing Animals`.

To take my photographs, I went to my local zoo called `Drusillas Park`. This zoo has a diverse range of animals with lots of different enclosure settings, allowing me to produce a good variety of photographs. Although the zoo was extremely busy, because the weather was sunny, which doesn’t happen often in England, I was still able to take some good photographs.

For all of the photographs included within this post, I used my Canon EOS 500D DSLR camera, with my Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens. This lens was my most important piece of kit when I went out on my shoot, as it allowed me to zoom right into the subject, so that they would fill the frame, resulting in a really focused shot. The USM (Ultra Sonic Motor) featured in this lens, helped me a lot when I was taking my photographs, as it enabled me to keep my subjects in focus, as it would adjust the focus accordingly, whenever the subjects moved.

Here are three of the images that I produced for my animal photography project:

Click on the images to enlarge them.

`Wondering...` - Douglas Benge

I have titled this photograph, `Wondering…`, as this is what the lemur appears to be doing in the image, thinking and wondering. I took quite a few photographs of the lemurs when I went on my shoot, but this photograph was the one that had the most natural character within it. I really like the composition of this shot, as the lemur looks into the empty space at the top right hand corner of the image, which in turn is thinking space for the viewer. I added two textures to this photograph, to try and create a texturally rich image; I think I have succeeded, as this photograph of a lemur is full of colour tone and rich textures.

`Unknown` - Douglas Benge

I have titled this photograph, `Unknown`, as it depicts a bird perching on a branch, but you can’t tell what type of bird it is, as I have photographed it from behind whilst its head was tucked down into its chest. I really like this element of mystery that this photograph has, as it draws you into the image, as you try and work out what this `creature` is. I have used a dark texture on this image, to create the illusion that it is night time. After I placed this texture onto the image, I erased the area of the texture that could be seen over the bird, resulting in the image that you see before you, where the bird appears as if it is glowing. The abstractness of this photograph helps to create a more powerful image, that isn’t just another standard animal portrait.

`Rainbow Lorikeet` - Douglas Benge

I have titled this photograph, `Rainbow Lorikeet`, as this is what the image depicts. The natural colours within this photograph are beautiful and vibrant, which is why I chose to use a multi-coloured texture over the original photograph, to add to these rich colours, and to create a photograph with more tone. I really like how the lorikeet is looking directly into the camera lens in this image; it adds an element of interaction to the photograph, as we are able to look at him directly in the eye. When I was photographing this lorikeet, because of its small size and the fact that it kept moving, it was difficult to keep focus on this birds face, but with some patience, I managed to produce this shot where the lorikeets face is in focus.

I was inspired by the photographer, Pauline Fowler, to produce my animal portraits in the way that I have. Pauline has produced a photographic series titled, `Exotic Animals`, which features photographs of animals such as zebras, tigers, and monkeys, that have all been manipulated in Photoshop, to create really rich textured images. To create this effect for her photographs, Pauline uses layered textures; these textures include her own photographs taken of light on water, greenery, skies, and some free textures that she downloads from the internet. I highly recommend that you visit her website and take a look at her `Exotic Animals` series. Here is the link: http://paulinefowler.artspan.com/

Top Tips for Photographing Animals:

• Be patient! – Patience is probably the most important thing you can have when photographing animals. You need to remember that animals are their own beings, so they aren’t going to do exactly what you want them to do. In order to produce natural animal photographs, you need to be patient, and need to wait for that natural spontaneous moment, it will be worth it.
• Experiment with different angles – The size of an animal will affect the angle that you photograph it from, so be prepared to get on the ground in order to get that perfect shot, especially when photographing small animals like pets. Photographing your subject from the best angle, can turn an ordinary photograph into a really impressive image.
• Photograph your subject early or late in the day – Photographing animals in strong midday sun isn’t ideal, and animals are generally less active at midday if the weather is warm. So, you should get up early or wait until later in the evening, in order to photograph your subject in the `golden hour`, the first and last hour of sunlight in the day. This will allow you to produce images that have a beautiful warmth to them, and will also allow you to take some stunning back-lit photographs.
• Focus on your subject’s eyes – Having a sharp focus on the eyes of a subject is important in any kind of portrait photography; this same principle applies when photographing animals. Different animals will have different shaped and coloured eyes, so a sharp focus on these eyes will allow you to see them in great detail. Remember, “Eyes are the window to the soul”.
• Try to avoid using flash – If you were to use flash when photographing an animal close to you, their eyes in the photograph would be an undesirable bright green colour; use natural light to photograph your subject, as this will create a softer photograph that has better tonal qualities than an image where your subject has glaring highlights from the use of flash. If you are at a zoo, and are photographing animals though a glass screen, you should definitely not use flash, as the flash will reflect off the glass, resulting in a bright, glaring image.
  
  
  I hope that these tips will help you when you go out to take your own animal photographs.

Time Photography

In this post I have included a selection of photographs that I produced for a photography project titled: `The Time Project`. The aim of this project was to experiment with time through the medium of photography; I did this by using fast and slow shutter speeds, and also by creating sequenced photographs. This project was great fun and has enabled me to produce some really interesting images. I hope you enjoy them! 

Click on the images to enlarge them.

BMX Jump

This photograph was taken at my local skate park, where I asked one of the BMX riders if he could do the jump you can see in the image above. I set my camera up on a tripod and selected `Manual` mode, before selecting a shutter speed of 1/250 of a second. The use of `Manual` mode is very important if you want to produce images like this one, as you need to ensure that each photograph has been taken using exactly the same settings. If you use `Auto` mode on your camera, with each photograph you take, your camera could be taking them with different exposure times, therefore, each image may appear with a different level of brightness. The use of `Manual` mode, also meant that I used `Manual focus`, and so I asked my subject to do a test run so I could focus him into the shot. When he was ready, I held my finger on the shutter release button, which then took continuous photographs at a rate of three frames per second. Now that I had got my images, I went into Photoshop and started to edit them to together. You can find tutorials on how to produce sequenced photographs like this on YouTube, just type in: `How to make a sequence in Photoshop`. 

Golden Syrup

This photograph depicts golden syrup that I drizzled into an egg cup using a spoon. I took this image using a fast shutter speed to capture the syrup as it fell from the spoon and landed in the egg cup, so that the syrup appeared sharp and in focus. I used a very simple set-up for this photograph; I took this image in my kitchen, using my 70mm-300mm telephoto lens. The lighting set-up consisted of two desk lamps to light the egg cup with the syrup in, and another desk lamp to light the backdrop of the photograph, which was just a piece of white paper. I used `Manual` mode when taking this photograph as I needed to adjust the aperture according to the shutter speed, to get the perfect exposure level for the image. I needed a really large aperture setting, and therefore a small f stop setting, in order to allow as much light as possible into the lens, as I was using a fast shutter speed. It is important to note that I had my camera set up on a tripod and used the timer on my camera to take ten consecutive photographs at a rate of three frames per second. After selecting the best photograph and a little editing in Photoshop, the image was complete.

Milk Splash

I took this photograph using exactly the same setup as my image titled: `Golden Syrup`. I was inspired to take this photograph after studying Harold Edgerton, who wanting to produce and photograph a perfect coronet from a single drop of milk falling into a liquid. His final image titled: `Milk Drop Coronet` is extremely impressive, especially considering that it was taken in 1957. My photograph depicts milk being poured into a glass containing milk that has had red food colouring added to it. I added red food colouring to the milk as I wanted to create a more vibrant and abstract photograph. The red colour also allows for the white milk being poured into the glass, to be seen more clearly. I really like how the milk that is being poured appears so straight and cylindrical, almost like a straw. As it can't be easily identified as milk at first, it adds an element of mystery to the photograph, as the viewer is left wondering what is being poured into the red liquid. 

Eerie Seascape

This seascape is an example of an image that has been produced using a slow shutter speed. I set my camera to `Manual` mode and used a shutter speed of two seconds, along with the smallest aperture size/largest f stop setting I could get, to allow me to get the perfect exposure level for this photograph. Once my camera was ready, I set it up on a tripod and got the shot level so that the horizon was perfectly flat. It is so important to use a tripod when taking images with a shutter speed slower then 1/60 of a second, as the subjects you want to stay still in your image, will blur due to camera shake. The aim of this photograph was to capture the groyne in focus, whilst the slow shutter speed would capture the movement of the water, as it moved in-between the groyne pillars. The effect that occurs is rather magical, as the water appears misty and `milky`. This is because of the motion blur created from the waters movement when the shutter was open. The groyne appears sharp and in focus as it is not moving, but the water is, thus creating the misty effect. I edited the image into grey-scale and darkened some areas of the photograph so that the misty texture was more prominent, creating a rather eerie seascape image. 

Top Tip:

`I know it looks complicated and difficult to understand, but try and get to grips with your cameras `Manual` mode if you have a Digital SLR. Using the `Manual` mode enables you to take photographs exactly how you want to take them, unlike the pre-set modes on your camera, that will adjust the individual settings like shutter speed and aperture for you. 

All it takes is a bit of experimenting and you’ll be using `Manual` mode like a pro! If you do get stuck, don’t worry, just look in photography magazines or on the internet for the answers you need. ` 

Telephoto Lens Photography

A telephoto lens will enable you as a photographer to fill the frame with your subject, without actually being that close to them. This type of lens is therefore often used when photographing wildlife or sporting events, where it is not possible to get close to the subject(s). 

There are many other benefits that telephoto lenses have compared to a standard lens:

• They increase background blur of an image (they produce a shallow depth of field)
• They flatten the perspective when photographing portraits
• Not only can they be used to photograph subjects far away, you can produce some really detailed photographs of subjects like flowers and plants using a telephoto lens; the shallow depth of field created by the lens is very effective when photographing these types of subjects.

In this post I have included some photographs that I took with my new telephoto camera lens which is the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens. The `IS` used here means `Image Stabilisation`, this comes in very handy as you are often zooming in onto a subject that can be very far away, `IS` therefore reduces camera shake. The `USM` feature of the lens stands for `UltraSonic Motor` which means the lens has a small motor built into its body, enabling it to auto focus faster than a standard lens. 

All these photographs were taken with my telephoto lens on my Canon EOS 500D camera body.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

A Squirrel Climbing a Tree

This photograph was taken in my local park and features a Squirrel that couldn't have posed any better for this photograph. I began by photographing him on the ground before he ran up the tree, stopping half way to turn around and look at me. He froze in this position for a couple of seconds enabling me to take this photograph. I was stood around five metres away from the squirrel when I took the photograph, this demonstrates just how well a telephoto lens works. The shallow depth of field that a telephoto lens creates in photographs is very evident here, with the grass in the background of the image completely out of focus.    

Catch Me If You Can!

At my local Air Show, I spotted a good opportunity to photograph the two main subjects of the show, the aeroplanes and the seagulls, who flocked to the beach where spectators sat with their picnics. After many photographs later, trying to get a seagull and the two aeroplanes in the shot, I managed to produce this image. I caught the seagull with its wings fully extended, filling out the frame of the photograph as the aeroplanes turned in the background, moving in the direction of the seagull. The fast shutter speed I used here has enabled me to capture this moment with the subjects sharply in focus.

A Pigeon Perched on a Fence

I carried some bread in my bag whilst on my visit to the park, in the hope that this would tempt subjects to come closer to me than usual. This pigeon spotted me as I was just putting away my bread bag, it then perched on the fence about two and a half metres away from me, it was then that I took this photograph. I gave the pigeon some bread when I had finished photographing it to reward its efforts as such a fine subject! Although this pigeon was much closer to me then the squirrel was in my previous photograph included in this post, the telephoto lens I used still created a shallow depth of field within my image.

 

Squeak

This photograph depicts one of my cats called `Squeak` and was actually one of the first photographs I took with my new telephoto lens. My telephoto lens worked really well in this photograph as it flattened the perspective of the subject, allowing me to get all of him in focus with the background of the image completely blurred. Although Squeak kept moving his head, looking around in different directions, I managed to capture him just as he looked into the lens, producing a rather striking photograph. The grey-scale effect of this image adds great contrast to the photograph and really allows for Squeak's fur pattern to stand out.

Top Tip:

`When using a telephoto lens, use high shutter speeds and a tripod when possible; this will ensure that the subjects within your image appear sharp and in focus.

By using a telephoto lens, you are magnifying an image, this however means that you are magnifying camera movement as well. Therefore, by using fast shutter speeds and a tripod, you will counteract this camera movement.`

If you are really sure you would like to invest in a telephoto lens, then it would be worthwhile investing in a lens hood as well. A lens hood simply fits onto the end of your lens and reduces flare that bright light sources can create within your images, especially if you are shooting towards the light source itself. For my lens, I have a `Canon ET-65B` lens hood, this works really well and stops excess light from entering my lens, reducing flare.


Next week I will be focusing on `Self Portraiture`, so get your cameras at the ready!