Posts Tagged ‘animal photography’
Fauna and Flora Tutorials
Flora and fauna; that’s what today’s well-paired tutorials cover.
A very meaty how-to on ePHOTOzine is exactly what it says: Beginners’ Guide To Safari Photography. This comprehensive tutorial starts by advising its beginner readership to research seasonal conditions in the park they’ll visit and carries on from there.
There are also other conditions you’ll have to be prepared for. As anyone who has been to the Serengeti or Masai Mara would vouch, things can get pretty dusty and also pretty bumpy. So take care of your gear accordingly.
You’ll also have to watch our for pitfalls where photography itself is concerned. For example, “when shooting a bird on a branch,” if you rely on auto or programmed exposure, the bird will most likely be underexposed. The how-to explains how to expose correctly in such situations.
The tutorial also offers a tip or two in how to frame and compose when on safari so as to create attractive photographs with a touch of artistry instead of dull, flat snapshots.
Jeff Guyer on DPSchool offers advice on photographing a subject that is “neither moody nor volatile” – flowers.
Flower photography is all about angles, angles, and . . . more angles, according to Guyer. What’s more, experiment: take positions all around, above and under your subject and shoot away.
One unexpected ‘tip’ in the article is that you should not find yourself absolutely requiring any specific or particular gear, not even macro lenses or tripods! Guyer explains that effective flower photography is possible using even telephotos or iPhones. That said, the expected and ‘right’ recommendations are also made.
Probably the most helpful and useful section is on Light. Here Guyer goes into ‘good light’ versus ‘bad light’ for flowers and how you can put that ‘good light’ to best use.
You might think that a flower is a small object to photograph but you’re advised to get closer still: “[S]ometimes the whole is not always as interesting as its individual parts. Focus in on details.” Create a semi-abstract composition from the parts of a flower!
These kinds of tips and tricks are explained by illustration with flower photographs that are striking and different as well as others that are simple and artistic.
Francesca Balaguer-Mercado’s Photographs and Other News
The week gets underway with our weekly three-pack on whimsical and offbeat news.
Abstract Art in Soap Bubbles
For the ultimate in Abstract Art by way of Photography, look no further than soap bubbles in your wash. Actually, creating the Abstract Art may be another matter entirely, for you’ll need specialized skills as well as specialized gear.
You need high-speed flashes and reflective panels and a whole lot of experience to capture a bubble at the precise nano-second that it’s bursting. However, the charm and attraction of this gallery are in the vivid, saturated hues and arresting globular designs on display.
Read Michael Zhang’s write-up on photographer Fabian Oefner’s newest obsession on PetaPixel.
Exotic Animals on Gurneys
Exotic Animals Far from Home by Jordan G. Teicher features the photographs of Linda Kuo. This is a gallery that will appeal to animal lovers and those interested in veterinary sciences because they document a veterinary hospital for exotic animals.
The value of these photographs is in their straightforward portrayals of (exotic) small animals and birds in a hospital setting, far removed from their natural habitat. This leads to two outcomes. First, the focus is squarely on the bird or animal and nothing else. Second, it seems to lend a vulnerable and frightened air to the subject, which would exude no such air in its native habitat, especially when it is at the mercy of some human.
Women in Intriguing Situations
Upon reading Peter Imbong’s intro, in which he talks about breaking stereotypes and “women in traditional roles gone bad,” for Anti-stereotypes in ‘Blame it on the Heat’ you may prep yourself to view something edgy, dark, disturbing. What a surprise, then, to run into images that are colourful, pleasing, and even gorgeous.
The article is about an exhibition of photographs by Francesca Balaguer-Mercado in which women are posed in non-traditional situations to break supposed stereotypes.
However, the photography of a hostess serving up a handgun, ostensibly to unwelcome guests, is simultaneously fashionable, sexy and humourous! Which housewife, at some point or another, hasn’t wanted to take a gun to uninvited guests who just won’t leave?
How about a young lass who, harried by old-fashioned telephones all over the place, has broken out in spots? And against a Roy Lichtenstein-type of colour-explosion background! Nothing iconoclastic or ‘bad girl’ here; indeed, gals going bananas with phones is actually a classic stereotype!
Balaguer-Mercado’s photographs have amazing breadth and variety. You’ll find an atmospheric image of a ‘bad girl’ in some dive reminiscent of film noir (a wonderful contrast to the ‘Lichtenstein Girl’) while a gorgeous, pastel-tints image of an East Asian beauty with a parasol is reminiscent of Japanese camera-makers’ ad campaigns from back in the 1980s!
Compliments to VASK Gallery in Bonifacio Global City for giving this very talented photographer a solo exhibition.
Tim Flach Presents the Animal as an Individual
In his extended and brilliant parable The Island of Dr. Moreau, H.G. Wells tells the story of a scientist who performs vivisections on animals so as to make human beings out of them; to ‘improve’ the animals. Tim Flach wants to achieve the same purpose though he certainly does not go as far as did Moreau; he only uses his camera, not a scalpel. Furthermore, he does not try to humanize the animals; he tries to find and convey superficial similarities between animal and human, or even identify and expose human characteristics that may be inherent in animals.
In More than Human, a book of animal portraits, Flach presents animals in ultra-close-up and in poses somewhat resembling those of humans. The photo at the top accompanying Stefany Anne Golberg’s article illustrates the point: is the rooster a tightrope walker or cheerleader by occupation? As for the simian, the pose, lighting, and angle are quite similar to those for a body-building shot!
An 18-image slideshow is available on ABC News and more have been published online on various sites.
Also compare Flach’s approach with that of Morten Koldby.
Flach’s goal is to bring animals “closer and closer” and that, apparently, is meant in multiple senses of the word: the purely physical and also the covertly artistic. Some resultant ‘semi macro’ shots detailing animal hides and scales do not go down well with Golberg: her criticism is that many of photographs have been taken from too close and she does not approve of the anonymous setting in which they’re taken.
That critique, however, tends to overlook the unusual mindset with which these photographs have been taken, a mindset that is revealed in the images themselves: does not this bat look like it’s walking while pulling a cape around itself (and looking shyly at the photographer to boot)?
This type of humanlike (or anthropomorphized, if you will) portrayal goes beyond ‘action photographs’ to almost pure studies. It doesn’t take imagination to see the quizzical, probing look worn by this owl. As for this monkey with the pained expression, can you but help wondering what’s happened to his/her hand?
Also, Golberg herself writes that in one of Flach’s images, “A panda bear sits face-front with arms folded, like he is posing for a passport.” That is the beauty behind these images; to make one think in terms of pandas getting passports made; of animals stepping into the day-to-day affairs of Humankind.
Here’s what Golberg misses. Flach’s photographs do not portray the animal as a component of nature because that is not his approach or mindset. Flach’s photographs are about – as odd as this may sound – the animal as an individual.
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