Animals
Ann and I aren’t wildlife photographers. That’s a whole separate genre of photography that involves a whole different approach to photography and a whole different kind of camera set up (think lenses as long as your arm (ok, I’m jesting there . . . just a bit)) and cameras that can shoot 100 frames per second (again, jesting . . . just a bit) and hunkering down in one location for extended periods of time trying not to move or otherwise disturb potential wildlife (not jesting). No, we may move around slowly, but we move around and explore the landscape and I can’t ever recall putting my camera into burst mode for anything other than wildlife.
Also, unlike wildlife photographers who are using shutter speeds fast enough to freeze a hummingbird blinking and wanting a depth of field shallower than a gnat’s hair (again, jesting) in order to separate the animal from its background at ISO levels that can give you noise that looks like Lego blocks before you fix it with software, we’re often more concerned about having the highest quality image (read: low ISO) and deepest depth of field so that foreground and background are in focus, which means using small apertures that require rather long exposure times. As Ann’s photograph below shows, long exposure times often don’t work very well with capturing wildlife like this smear . . . I mean swan . . . in the landscape.
The fact is, more often than not, the presence of wildlife in an image restricts your range of creative options for landscape photography and they’re best left out of the frame.
But as landscape photographers/photographers who make images in the natural environment (whatever we want to call ourselves), we can’t help but occasionally run into wildlife on our excursions. Sometimes, it’s something really interesting like bison in Yellowstone, but most of the time it’s something mundane. In England, that meant sheep and other farm animals as well as very common wildlife. Still, sometimes they are just part of the image, part of the landscape that you accept is there, just like buildings, walls and things like that.
But animals are animals and sometimes they make you do a double take. Like the sheep off in the left of Ann’s image from our first stop in the UK. It was staring her down, probably thinking, “What in the heck are you doing?” Good question I guess.
Ann wasn’t the only one though. I’d found a couple of trees at one of our workshop locations (having to bushwhack my way through a bunch of underbrush to get there), only to find this sheep standing in-between them. This guy, well didn’t trust me in the least. Remember what I said about animals moving during landscape photographs. Not this bugger, she kept her eyes locked on me the whole time - a 2.2 second exposure. Not just once, but for 7 exposures! She’s as razor sharp as the trees beside her in all 7 exposures (the reason I made 7 ?. . . to make sure she hadn’t moved during the exposure). Again, she’s probably thinking, “Who is that idiot and what is he doing?”
Now, that question doesn’t only go one way. It wasn’t until Ann downloaded this image on her computer, and saw it large, did she realize there’s a sheep staring right into the fence post in the bottom center of the image. What? Is she trying to hide or something?
For the most part though, the sheep were just sheep and were pretty much doing their thing grazing in the fields.
Occasionally, though, they’d be beside the road or next to the parking lot. And for the most part, they were pretty disinterested in people and seemed to just want to be left alone. That, I can understand.
But it wasn’t all just sheep. England and Scotland have their fair share of cows, though in lower numbers. On one of our workshop stops, the walk led through a cow field with a small herd of Belted Galloway cows laying by a stone fence. After our photography session was over and we were heading back to the vehicles, the cows had moved into the field and I joked with Ann, “Look, it’s a bunch of Oreo Cookies. So I quickly ran over to make a photograph. By the time I set up my camera, a pair had gotten close together so I had a Double Oreo!
A few seconds later, one of the Belted Galloways turned around and gave me a more pleasing spacing between my cookies.
Our wildlife interactions weren’t just with terrestrial animals though. There were a fair share of birds. And given the fact we were around a lot of water, we were bound to run into our fair share of water birds. So sometimes, we’d decide to use a faster shutter speed, frame up our image, and wait for the birds to come to us, like Ann did in this image, to intentionally add an element of life in the landscape image.
Other times, like when I was trying to photograph something entirely different, the birds would intrude. Then you’re left with the option of either waiting until they pass (and hope no others come along), or make a photograph or two with geese gliding through the image.
And then there was that one instance where I did the inexcusable . . . I violated Ann’s personal photography space without permission. Ann was photographing from a lake shore so I’d walked over to see what she was composing. As she started explaining to me what she was thinking, she turned around, gesturing with her hands about the different considerations she was weighing, in particular the cropping, and commenting how she wasn’t sure if the image worked or not. As she was talking, I noticed a flock of geese taking off to my right. A second or two later, I saw the geese appearing on her rear LCD, racing across the screen. Without thinking and without saying anything, with Ann still facing towards me (back to camera), I quickly reached over her shoulder and with my index finger, pressed her shutter button, having no idea what her shutter speed was or if she had her self-timer on (which would have mean the exposure would miss the birds). Anyway, that was a big no, no, violating her personal photography space like that. But I couldn’t help myself. Oops!
In the comments below, put how long you think Ann was pissed at me. Winner gets a free print.
I think I’m better off staying away from the animals. It too often gets me in trouble . . . like that time in Yellowstone where a bison got between me and Beast, and after Ann warned me about it, I turned back around to take a couple more exposures before packing up and heading the long way back to the vehicle. I got in trouble for that one too. I wasn’t in any danger - it was a good 75 yards away and just chomping away at the grass. I was more worried about the rest of the herd slowly making its way up the hill towards me. Like I said, better off staying away from animals.