Ready, set, Portrait!

Portraiture counts among the most classical disciplines in photography.  A good portrait captures the character of the subject, requiring both knowledges of the subject and time. Yet, it is precisely the factor of time that we generally lack in most of our encounters with wildlife. They tend to be brief and dynamic, as the animal notices us before we notice them. 

Therefore, one of the best ways to obtain nice portraits of wildlife, is to have a good old-fashioned stake-out. Long, sedentary hours spent at a hide-out in the woods, where we let the subject come to us, instead of actively seeking it out. In the best cases, the animals remain blissfully unaware of our presence. We can start to study their approach patterns, and think about where and when we would like to take the shot that we are looking for, including some of the environment for composition.

Such classic side or front shots have a clear, crisp and appealing charachter. Yet sometimes their conventional nature just doesn’t fit with the subject, or it’s just good plain old fun to mix expectations up a bit!

To know a Risso

A pair of dorsal fins briefly emerges from the surface. The scar-like marks that become visible as the back slowly rolls through the water provide a fleeting glimpse into a cryptic life; a life otherwise spent unobserved, foraging in the depths of the ocean.

Deep diving whales and dolphins are among some of the most captivating, yet elusive wildlife found on our planet. Like the snow-leopards occupying the heights of the Himalayas, and the last rhino’s clinging on in the depths of the jungle, the inhospitable environments in which these animals live makes encounters with humans rare, and this only seems to add to the mystical power they hold in our collective imagination. But how then, can we attempt to grasp the essence of such an animal in a picture? This question has divided the artistic and scientific opinion of people for a long time.

Moby Dick’s Ishmael (1851) famously ridiculed the ‘monstrous’ pictoral resources of whales available in his time, where ‘.. the prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with perpendicular flukes’, and in another instance notes that ‘.. one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent public of schoolboys.’. All of this is perhaps not too surprising, as Ishmael admits, for a period in which most artist had to rely on stranded individuals or bones in their attempts to reconstruct a vivid depiction of a living individual.

Nowadays, technology enables us to capture images underwater and even explore the depths of the oceans, leading to some surprising encounters; all allowing us to come much closer to accurately representing these animals. Yet perhaps, the true essence of any animal, be it a  common garden bird or a rare and cryptic dolphin, will always remain unknowable. Maybe it is also better that way, for what makes life more interesting and surprising, than the mysteries that surround us?

Vigilance

A faint crackling of leaves on the forest floor carries through the undergrowth. Although hardly audible to human ears, the sound is nonetheless picked up as important auditory information by the forest’s other inhabitants. It could have simply originated from a group of voles, scurrying about in their usual way just beneath the leafy surface. Perhaps it was a lone blackbird hopping along and picking up leafy debris in its search for prey. Yet, you never quite know and vigilance is key, especially if predators might be lurking around. 

The sensitivity of forest animals to subtle cues from their environment, be it faint sounds or smells carried by the wind, is one of the more challenging aspects when trying to observe them. We stride around the forest as silent as we can, dressed up in camouflaging clothes and all, trying to see, but sometimes forgetting that we ourselves are seen, smelled, and heard almost as soon as we cross the line of trees that separates our worlds.

The rarity of encounters of woodland animals for any sustained period of time also imbues these events with a near-mystical quality. A few seconds of eye contact leave an intense imprint that lingers on in the mind for long after the event has passed; with the best encounters being those where neither party is pushed beyond its comfort, a short, respectful, curiosity-driven, examination and exchange of views. 

Vagrants & Migrants

Temperate island life revolves around cyclical change, and these changes are reflected in the Island’s bird community. The species community can vary dramatically over the year, but also the course of a single day, as species scramble to capitalize on changes in the environment. 

Waders follow the nycthemeral cycle of the tides; foraging on far-out mudflats and returning to the island’s inland wetlands to roost. Songbirds match their arrival and the intensity of their displays in line with the annual boom and bust cycle in natural productivity.

The light of some burns bright and brief. In late April, bluethroats take center stage for exuberant displays with little regard to personal safety, before disappearing back in the anonymity of the undergrowth, where hardly a sight or sound is heard of them for the remainder of the year. Others prefer more of a slow burn. Stonechats can be observed to be perched ever-watchful along the trails as long as conditions sustain them, but never too exulted or loud.

It is when conditions become too harsh for these temperate species during winter, that frost-hardened northern migrants, such as the snow bunting, arrive and exploit the scarce resources left in the cold.

Amidst all these shifts, there are certain species that provide a welcome sense of constancy. Eiders abound on the island fringes, staying tentatively out of reach just behind the surf’s break all year round. Paradoxically, it is by keeping their distance, that they never have to venture out of sight, and form a truly lasting part of the island’s landscape.