Baby Jackal
Madikwe Game Reserve
(Nikon D300, Nikon 80-200 @200mm, 1/200, f/2.8, ISO 320)
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A week ago we found this little youngster in the middle of a large open clearing. Initially quite relaxed and sleeping in the grass, the young jackal suddenly got up and proceeded to stare very nervously in one direction. Even after a few minutes, when we drove away, he did not budge. We never found whatever got this young jackal so upset but the interesting thing, photographically speaking, was that the moment the animal turned away from us a lot of the people stopped taking pictures. Many books and blogs will tell you that you have to always get the animal’s eyes sharp in focus but that does not mean you should stop the moment you cannot see the eyes anymore. When this happens, and an animal looks away from you, start looking for lines, shapes and use basic compositional guidelines to create your images. By placing the young jackal in the bottom right hand side of the frame I left some negative space for the animal to look into. Since I could not see the eyes I focused on the ears which was without a doubt the focal point of the scene. At f/2.8 this meant that the animals body would be slightly out of focus. This, along with the full frame of grass, ended up giving the image a slightly ‘dreamy’ feeling which I then took just a little further in the digital darkroom by adding a slight vignette around the edges. Something slightly different and I quite like the end result. Your thoughts?
Since I got completely carried away this weekend and did two posts that’s it for today! If you missed the weekend’s posts here is a quick reminder:
More soon!
Gerry
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