Here is something we can learn from tanjabrandt about the techniques and story behind three of her awarded photo. My favorite Models are my dog and my Raptors and owls, which have a great friendship.
I took the photo in the forest, where I live and where I go out every day with my animals and my camera in Germany, Remscheid. It was 16:24. The last light, before it gets dark in wintertime.The light was near to get bad. Wintertime is short and we went out for a walk to shoot in the last moments of the day. In the forest usually the light is very bad. I used the Nikon D4 with Nikkor 70-200mm, 2.8 nothing else.
The photo was taken outside, at the edge of the wood, near Düsseldorf, Germany. When I go out, to have a walk, I'm always with my camera and my animals. If they want to interact, I want to catch this with the camera. I went out at 12 noon and the weather was fine. We wanted to go to a great lost place, which was an old sand bunker, to enjoy the day. But when we arrived there, we saw, that they made a high palisade around the whole area. So we wanted to walk back on the other side but the way was very long and no, it starts bad weather and rain. We made a rest on this tree and Ingo and Poldi had a discussion... yhey where tired. It was 16 o clock afternoon, when shooting the picture.
In this moment, the light wasn't very good. And Ingo und Poldi wasn't in good mood. But they want to share their bad mood with each other and so the expression of the picture was more valuable for me, then the good light we had before. I am using always Nikonc cameras. My pics, I am taking with the Nikon D4 and most of the pics I shot with the Nikkor 70-200mm, 2.8 No flash, Tripod or something else. I am making my pics all alone with my animals and I am mostly far away (200 mm) from them. So they can interact if they want.
The advice for my kind of photography is not so easy, because the biggest advice is, to let the animals trust in you. Trust in each other. So that they want to work with you, want to be with you and that they have fun. I am very quiet and let them interact, so I only shoot the moments.
Follow tanjabrandt to see more animal portraits.
