Zoo Portraits: part two

In a follow up to my previous Zoo Portrait Post, I wanted to share this new shot from...the zoo. By shooting a tight frame, the lions could be anywhere. The late afternoon back light added some nice dimension and detail.

I followed up the RAW processing with black and white conversion in Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Gear: Nikon D300 / 80-200 2.8 lens

Exposure: ISO 400/ F5.6 / 1/640th

As always, click any image for the larger version. TR

Zoo Portraits

Animal portraits can be hard to come by. Wildlife photography is a very specialized and challenging art. Not only do you have to be able to survive “out in the wild” you‘ve got to know your subjects very well and wait for them to appear.

You could easily spend months waiting for a shot to come together and you rarely get a second chance. Hats off to the wildlife photographers who spend their lives getting the shots, they are truly dedicated.

Most of my wildlife photography has been done underwater. Dolphins, Sharks, reef fish etc. I’m pretty happy underwater

Osprey chick on the Great Barrier Reef

I was in Australia out on the Great Barrier Reef a few years ago. On a small spit of sand not far from Lizard Island. I came upon this young osprey chick that had been blown out of its nest. The wind was steady

Frog-Macro with Flash

I was in far north Queensland, Australia shooting for the magazine Asia Pacific Tropical Homes in 2004. I was photographing interiors and architecture of some of tropical Australia’s most distinct private villas.

I was lucky enough to be staying in one incredible villa situated back in a lush rainforest. At night, the sounds of the jungle were deafening. Insects, birds, bats and frogs all trying to outdo the other screaming into the darkness. I’m sure they had a purpose other than keeping me awake.

An amazing array of frogs would end up congregating on my patio on any given night. It was bizarre.

Handheld Flash Underwater

It doesn’t take long to discover the limits of having a strobe mounted on a fixed arm. The first time I went diving with a Nikonos V and 105 Substrobe, I did like most people and mounted the strobe on the arm and base plate blah, blah, blah. It made sense, it was part of a kit and that’s how it looked in the manual. Good job.

I found a huge moray eel back in a dark crevice and was futilely trying to angle my camera / strobe in such a way to throw light on the eel. It wasn’t going to happen.