Practicing Graphic Design

Part 3

Graphic design as it relates to animals is more challenging than when photographing people or architecture because you have no control over how an animal holds itself, how it runs, or even how it turns its head.

Animals in moton make great pictures if and only if their bodies define attractive shapes. Look at the two shots of a fox, below, and you can see what I’m talking about. Both images were taken at 20 frames per second which gave me a lot of choice in determining which frame was the best. The image on the left shows high speed action, but the position of the legs leave a lot to be desired. They are not graphically pleasing. The image on the right shows a beautiful spread of the legs, and the front left leg is artistically bent. It’s impossible to stop the action in your mind and carefully compose the fox with a perfect leg position, and that’s why a fast frame rate is so important when photographing animals in action. I used a shutter speed of 1/1600th of a second to insure sharp pictures.

With pictures of birds in flight, it’s all about the shape and design of their wings. Obviously, it’s important to have an uncluttered background and lighting is very important, but it’s the wing position that makes or breaks the photograph. The roseate spoonbill on the next page exemplifies this. I took this from a small boat in Tampa Bay, Florida, shooting straight up. This is one reason I don’t use a tripod when photographing birds in flight. A tripod would not allow the camera to be angled like this; even if it did, I would have had to contort my neck into a very uncomfortable position. Handholding the telephoto requires a certain amount of strength in your arms and shoulders, but I find this to be much easier to take good shots while not being constrained by a tripod.

Birds with large beaks, like toucans, make strong graphic shapes when their head is turned to the side. Had the keel-billed toucan from Costa Rica, at right, been looking straight at the camera, the picture would have looked almost silly. It certainly won’t have the visually compelling graphic shape that the image at right has.

Herbivores are challenging to photograph because most of the time they have their heads in the grass. This does not make a strong picture. Whether you’re photographing an elk, a horse, or a rhinoceros, animals grazing don’t present attractive graphic shapes.

Compare the two pictures at the top of the next page. As pretty as sunrise lighting was when I photographed the two horses on the left, this is not an exciting image. I took it, so I liked it enough to push the shutter, but it’s not great. It lacks a dynamic artistic design. The com- parision shot was taken in essentially the same kind of light, but here you can see the wonderful shape of the horse. The head is held high, the mane is flying, and even the legs are bent nicely. This is a great example of the power of graphic design.

Visually compelling lines are important in creating strong images of all kinds of subjects in- cluding reptiles. For example, the green tree boa, below, taken during my Frog and Reptile workshop, is positioned in such a way that its coils form S-curves and C-curves. This couldn’t have been more perfect.

Knowing what to look for with respect to graphic design will help you to know precisely when to push the shutter button. §