Readers Photo Challenge assignment: Where the wild things are
The easiest access to animals are our pets. In many ways photographing our pets is like photographing a person. You know what their personalities are like so try to capture a mood. Try to get them when their happy, sad, thoughtful or just plain goofy.
Like taking pictures of people, use sound photographic practices like good lighting, uncluttered backgrounds and getting in close to your subject. Most pets have short attention spans so you’ll likely have to work quick before they’re distracted by something else. Try shooting them with another person, family member or even another pet, to help keep them distracted from the camera allowing you more time to photograph.
Zoos are a good place to photograph animals. There can be many types of beasties, exotic and otherwise, to see. The main difficulty is that they are in enclosures and are separated from you by distance, fencing or glass walls. A telephoto lens will help you to bring the images of the animals close to you so they won’t look tiny in your photo.
You can make some fences “disappear” but getting in as close as you can to the fence, almost touching it with the lens if you can, and having the animal as far away from the fence as possible. By doing this and using a wine aperture for a shallow depth of field, this will make the fence seem invisible to the camera.
Glass enclosures won’t have that problem but there can be unwanted reflections. A polarizer filter can help to eliminate some reflections but you can also get close to the glass, similarly to the aforementioned fence, which will also help as well.
Photographing wild animals can also be problematic. You don’t want to get to close lest you be subject to an attack. Most animals will probably flee but there are some that get angry and can turn on you. Even wild geese have been known to put up quite fight when provoked.
Recently, sea lions chased off beach goers who got too close while trying to take pictures at La Jolla Cove in the San Diego area. Too often people think that wild animals are tame but, as the term “wild” indicates, they can be unpredictable and even dangerous when provoked. Keep your distance.
For this assignment anything with fur or feathers and even insects are fair game, so to speak. Unfortunately, we’re not like Dr. Doolittle and can’t directly speak to our pets or other animals. The best we can do is to be patient, keep a camera handy and wait for just the right moment to photograph them.
Record photographer Clifford Oto has photographed Stockton and San Joaquin County for more than 37 years. He can be reached at coto@recordnet.com or on Instagram @Recordnet. Follow his blog at recordnet.com/otoblog. Support local news, subscribe to The Stockton Record at https://www.recordnet.com/subscribenow.
How to enter
1. Photos have to be taken between July 26 and Aug. 9.
2. Include your name (first and last), hometown, the kind of device you used, how you got your photo and where it was taken (eg.: John Doe of Stockton, Canon 5D Mk III. Victory Park in Stockton).
3. If there is a recognizable person or persons in the photo please identify them (name, age, hometown) and describe what is going on in the photo (eg.: “My daughter Jane Doe, 12, of Stockton, walks her golden retriever Fluffy at Victory Park in Stockton at Sunset”). Please indicate how they are related to you (friend, mother, father, daughter, son, etc).
4. Please feel free to include any interesting anecdotes or stories on how you took the picture.
5. The number of photos is limited to 10.
6. Entries can be emailed to coto@recordnet.com. The preferred format is jpeg. Type in “Colorful” in the subject line.
7. The deadline for submission is Aug. 9. Top picks will be in the Aug. 16 Record and posted to the Record’s Facebook page and Instagram. An online gallery of all the photos on the same day at recordnet.com.
This article originally appeared on The Record: Readers Photo Challenge assignment: Where the wild things are
