Common Subject, Uncommon Results
This squirrel image was created with the Canon 400mm f/5.6 lens
and the Canon EOS-50D. ISO 400. EV 0: 1/400 sec. at f/6.3.
A few months ago, I had a great morning photographing numerous wading and shorebirds during low tide on the Anclote River in Holiday, Florida. This is a great place to visit very early in the morning, especially during low tide to capture some fantastic images in the clam, shallow waters.
After spending several hours out on the exposed sand bars, I decided to take a break and head back to my car for some lunch. As I was enjoying my food, I noticed numerous squirrels playing, scavenging and having a good time themselves all around me. I watched them for about half an hour and studied their behavior for I thought to myself that even though these are very common animals, they can result in some great photo opportunities.
Here is one of my all-time favorite techniques, filtered light. Notice how I waited to just the right moment for the squirrel to walk into a small brightly lit area on the ground that I had pre-focused on hoping he would come to my selected spot. He did, and the result is one that is very pleasing.
The key here was to get at their level. This ensures that I capture them in their environment and how they perceive the world around them. Since I had studied their behavior, I had a very good understanding of where they like to go, how they move as well as their body language. This is huge advantage since running up and chasing them all over the place would result in few if any great images I had hoped for.
The other critical step in my session with these busy little guys was to be patient. I laid on the ground and focused my lens on an area where I hoped for the best opportunity. In doing so I had set up a "studio" of sorts where I controlled my light, background and depth of field.
This little guy was very fascinated by me and would play "peek-a-boo" around a palm tree. This of course was amusing, but more importantly gave me a killer opportunity for a very intimate image. The background was dark to bring him out of his element, which by the way was my car!
For the next hour I worked my "studio" that I had set up, all of which was literally in a small parking lot. However, when looking at the images captured that day, one would be hard pressed to tell just where they were taken for the one thing that was most important was how I composed my background.
The other important factor was getting at their level, for perspective goes a long way in telling the story even if it is a few little squirrels as they go about their busy day.
After getting comfortable with me, many of the squirrels would show some of their natural behaviors, and sometimes they would do something that even was downright funny. Here, this little guy had an itch that he just had to attend to.
One of the most common mistakes many photographers make is in their choice of formats for all too often they will only photograph either a horizontal or vertical composition. Here, by simply rotating my camera, I captured a fantastic vertical image of the same squirrel above and now have doubled my potential killer images.
In just about an hour I came away with dozens of amazing images and was only feet away from my car in a parking lot. Just goes to show that anywhere is a potential wildlife photo opportunity if only one takes the time to explore and plan out their time!
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Robert La Follette
