Practical Photography - UK (2020-01)

22 PracticalPhotograPhy

Zoos offer easy access to

nature’s most fantastic animals without

having to travel across the globe. there are

many creatures you can photograph, but

often they are in hard-to-see conditions,

which means that, as roger Hunt

(instagram.com.rmhphotographic) found,

it can be tricky to get a clean shot.

“I usually photograph birds in flight and

other local wildlife, but I recently became

tempted to visit a nearby zoo to capture

some images of more exotic animals. In

some ways it felt like I was revisiting my

childhood, but as I’ve gone through life and

into retirement, I re alise that I’ve developed

an unease about seeing captive creatures.

“as many photographers will know, zoos

are not ideal places to capture distraction

or reflection-free images and I used all

of the techniques I know to eliminate

background clutter. In these examples

I wanted to get up close and personal to

try to capture an emotional connection.

“I also like to experiment and try to

be creative during post-processing to

produce a more artistic image. I processed

the raW files in Lightroom and converted

to black & white in order to draw out as

much of the line and texture as possible.

then, after exporting to Photoshop, any

distracting pieces of straw and dust were

removed from face and body using the

spot Healing Brush tool. to create a more

artistic image that allowed total focus on

the subject, I used a soft-edged black

Brush tool to remove the background.”

Above To blur out enclosure fencing

in your shots, get as close as you can

and choose a wide aperture.

Canon 7D MkII | 560mm | 1/640sec | f/8 | ISO 400 Canon 7D MkII | 378mm | 1/640sec | f/8 | ISO 800

Canon 7D MkII | 264mm | 1/250sec | f/8 | ISO 1600

# 5 Focus in on your subject

black & white