ICT Homework - Helpful Suggestions

Most of you have now reached Challenge 4: Wild Life, Farm Animals and Pets section of your ICT homework. Unlike the subjects of your challenges the subjects of this photography will not sit still and be photographed - the complete opposite in fact, they will be moving.

So here are some top tips to help you finish Challenge 4

Before starting:

Know this will take some time - so set some time aside where you will not be interrupted. This won't be a quick 5 minute snap.
Be prepared - make sure your phone is fully charged.
Switch off the notifications on your phone - the continual ping might disturb your subject.
Go to the loo - you can't sit still if your bladder is talking to you!

During:

Make yourself comfortable and stable - it might be a long time before you get the best picture be prepared. I find sitting down quietly really helps both with the angles and reduces your fidgeting and wobbly picture.
Take time to do some mindfulness - be in the moment. The only thing to focus on is your subject and that great photo. Forget the rest of the world for a while just do one thing.
Take lots of photographs from many angles - more the better.

Afterwards:

The selection is as important as taking the shot.

a. Look at the subject and ask yourself: Is it in focus? Is it within the grid frame?

Do I have a point of interest?

b. Now look past the subject and ask yourself: Is it subject centred? do I have a

1/3 - 2/3 ratio? Do I have some useful negative space?

c. Then get picky, look at the background and ask yourself: what don't I like? What

is there that makes this photograph less than that one?

2. Delete the bad shots.

3. When you have narrowed them down repeat steps a, b and c again.

4. Submit your best shot.

As you know I don't have any pets, and going to a farm is difficult. I could go to the local petting farm but that is really for families with young children and it feels a bit odd taking up a space right now with Covid-19. So my photograph had to be of wild life. Wild life is a bit more tricky. If you and your pet get along well, it is easy to get them to sit in a spot with a taste titbit whilst your practice. Farm animals tend to stand still for a while too or can be tied, or pened, stabled if you know the farmer/owner. Wildlife, on the other hand, will not hang around and can't be cornered up. So, this is the highly prized effort here. Except for Henry, who back in 2018, was taking a city landscape from a lake side position. He was so focused on the city he complete missed the otter running along the bottom of the shot until he was editing out the photographs.

Now, I have a very good relationship with my local robin families. Five years ago we had a partially brave robin who visited our garden. He would get quite near and every batch of robins, since, has learnt that if I am weeding: there will be taste titbits for them. They sit on the fence tops watching and waiting. Even if I am moving, they will come about 90 to 120cm (3 to 4 school rulers) close. If I sit still, they will come 60cm to 90cm (2 to 3 school rulers) close.

So, I used this knowledge to my advantage, when two juvenile (one slightly older than the other) robins showed up yesterday afternoon. You can tell they are still quite young because they are not fully red in the breast and they still have some fluffy feathers.

I was gardening and the task for the day was turning the compost. Yeah, I know a yucky job but somebody has to do it! (Which is probably why I was easily distracted.) The second compost bin had a huge ants nest in it. They were very active in protecting their home - I got a bit a couple of times! Ok more than a couple of times. So, I stepped back and let them disperse - once I had opened up the centre of the mound.

For my final robin photograph shown at the very end of this - I took 78 photographs in total over the course of an hour. I deleted 5 photographs where I managed not to photograph a robin in shot at all. I deleted a further 6 where the robins were moving so fast they were just smudges of action. Leaving me with 67 after rule a. is it in focus? was applied.

Then I applied rule a: Do I have a point of interest? Although I had many shots with the robins in the centre of the grid - they had their back to me. Where they were popping in and out of the undergrowth heads were missing. These are not points of interest and 25 were deleted, leaving 42.

Moving on to rule b: looking at the space around the subject. I rejected 24 where because there was too much back round in ratio to the subject - the robin is too small in the photograph. Leaving me with 18 photographs to choose from.

Rule c: Getting picky - look past the subject to the background. What is there that makes this photograph less than that one? The first thing to say these are robins on a compost bin so the background is not necessarily going to be great! A compost is full of decaying garden and household peelings. Anything too gross is going - I don't want you to judge my compost heap!

Out of the 78 photographs I started with - I now 5 to choose from. I have selected this one because you can see the flying ants in the robins mouth, whist it is stilling quite close to me. I haven't cropped this photo or zoomed in, this is how close they will come. This photograph, represents for me that afternoon. It tells the whole story: the juvenile robins, the compost, the compost sieving and the revenge on those bitting ants!