Page 6 Ray Barlow

The Static Shot by Ray Barlow Part 3

Well let's call this the final part of this series, I hope there was something for everyone during these 3 parts of The Static Shot. I do enjoy doing the writing once in a while, but we have some interesting new articles coming soon here on NIOM. I am now looking at creating a new forum so everyone interested in wildlife and nature photography can show off their images, and share information. Again, thanks so much for visiting this website, and we do hope to keep things interesting and informative.

We have covered a lot of areas in photography briefly with the last 2 articles, and one of the most interesting, and highly critical subjects is composition.

When you are out in the field shooting, it is really important to think ahead!! Plan your work, and work your plan! One of the easiest tips to help you with is to always try to leave some extra space around your subject when framing through the camera lens. It is important to have the subject size to work well with your environment, so having some extra room around the subject is always an advantage.

One mistake I see is cropping out the "virtual' body part. Let's say you have a moose walking through the woods, and it comes out from behind a tree, you get a great shot of the front half of the body, but the back half is hidden. Cropping out the back "virtual" part of the animal can create 'tension" in your composition. This problem is more evident in bird photography, when the tail of the bird is hidden below the perch, and the crop starts at the birds feet, and goes up.

In any discussion concerning composition, the rule of thirds is always a good place to start. with birds and animals, we consider the eyes to be the main point of interest. Naturally, you want the eyes to be sharp! Placing the eyes if your subject in the absolute center of the frame is the biggest mistake. Try to visualize a secondary frame inside your viewfinder / image, which has imaginary lines that divide the frame into thirds vertically, and horizontally.

These lines are also possible to create inside most viewfinders, just look through your menu on the camera, and tell it to provide you with a grid display. Once you have practiced shooting using the grid guidelines, it will eventually become natural for you to compose your shooting into this "rule of thirds" Examples are here and in my previous articles.

The last key point in wildlife composition is to give the right amount of space in front of the view of your subject. if the bird / animal is looking to the right side of the frame, try to keep it on the left side of your viewfinder when shooting. The open space on the right side of your frame is helping to tell the story, a place for the subject to travel. This especially works well with birds in flight, and animals on the move.

I hope you enjoyed this series, and please scroll back in time to read almost 70 articles we have here on NIOM. Also, we are still looking for writers!! Please email me if you have something interesting... ray@raymondbarlow.com

take good care, and respect our wildlife please.

Ray Barlow