ADVENTURE PHOTOGRAPHY

with Cathy & Gordon ILLG

PHOTO TIPS

It’s a nice snowy day, and you’ve got a tolerant red fox that’s all but posing for you. Don’t laugh. It could happen. In fact, it used to happen on a regular basis at a greenbelt here in the Denver Metro Area. Back to our story though. Which lens would you use on the fox?

Over the years, Cathy and I spent a lot of time focusing a 500mm lens on those foxes, and we came home with some very nice portraits. Even though some of the images were published, a few in some prominent places, we were not satisfied. As nice as our portraits were, there are lots of fox portraits in circulation, and most of them can’t help but look similar.

One snowy day, I decided I wanted to make my fox photos look different. I left the 500mm lens at home and grabbed our 28-80 zoom. When I arrived at the greenbelt, there was a fox waiting on the bridge, hoping for a handout. It would’ve been a great opportunity for another tight portrait. At 28mm though, the bridge railings not only frame the fox, but make the perfect leading lines for the center of interest. This image tells a much more complete story than a portrait would. A quick glance tells the viewer that here is an animal who has adapted to living near humans (it’s using a bridge to cross a small creek).

Runner Up, Urban & Garden Wildlife

2003 BG Photographer Of The Year

There is no right or wrong answer to which lens a photographer should use to photograph a fox. It’s a matter of what you want to say with your photo. To capture the viewer’s interest with the beauty of the animal, you probably want to shoot it tight to highlight the details in its fur and the color of its eyes. If you want to show the fox’s relationship to its habitat, you will need to shoot it a bit wider. How wide is determined by what elements in the habitat you need to include in the image.

Creating a strong composition with a small subject is much more difficult than it is with a subject that takes up the entire frame. However, it also makes a more unusual image. And that is one of the reasons this photo was Runner Up in the Urban & Garden Wildlife category of the BG Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest. The judges see lots of fox photos in that contest, mostly portraits (we’ve sent them quite a few ourselves). All of our portraits were passed over, but this image was different enough to catch the judges’ eye.