Giant Iguana
Oct, 2014Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photograph at a butterfly farm in Stratford upon Avon in the UK. They have two giant Iguana's one called "princess" and the other called "stumpy". They are about 10 years old and approximately 4 foot long. This photograph is of Stumpy. The farm is a large tropical rain forest enclosed in a large glass greenhouse. It has waterfalls and fish pools, trees and plants. It is very humid and I had to wait a good half an hour for my camera and lenses to adjust to the temperature.Time
I arrived at lunchtime with good light from the glass roof above.Lighting
I was crouched down carefully in front of a resting butterfly, when there was a large crackling noise from above and Stumpy came crashing down still holding the branch he had been climbing on. He missed me by about 2 foot!! I am only 5 foot 2, so having a 4 foot Iguana land by the side of me was rather a shock! It seems he was feeling a little amorous and had been chasing Princess along some trellis that ran across the ceiling. Oh by the way, he is called Stumpy because Princess bit off some of his tail when he wouldn't leave her alone. I had two thoughts - Run away or take the photo. He seemed more interested in looking for Princess, so I quickly removed my macro rings and got down next to him. I love the way he is looking at me in this photo.Equipment
I use a Sony Nex 7 and was using the 18-55mm kit lens at the time. It was quite dark at ground level so I pushed the ISO up to 1250 and shot this at F5 1/80s hand held. I did have a monopod with me but in my panic I didn't use it. I choose not to use the flash as there wasn't anywhere to bounce it and i didn't want to use it directly.Inspiration
It was an amazing experience. The noise when he fell... I thought the roof was caving in! And then to have him right next to me was unbelievable. He is such an interesting subject with great colors and texture. I managed to get a few photos before he preceded to climb the trellis again to find his mate, and he was once again lost among the tropical plants.Editing
I wanted to bring out the detail out in his scales, so i took one RAW file and used that to create 3 jpeg's of varying EV value. (-3 0 +3) I then combined them to get a HDR image. I used lightroom for some final adjustments and to enhance the colors with hue and saturation.In my camera bag
My Sony camera is so small that I am able to carry quite a few lenses with me. I have that camera with me where ever I go and I usually carry the Sony 18-55mm and the 55-210mm with it. I can get all 3 items in my handbag with my mobile phone and a cleaning cloth! (I bet you don't hear handbags mentioned with camera gear that often!) I have a lot of old Minolta MD lenses which I adore. I have a 50mm F1.7, 200mm F2 and the 300mm F4.5 but for landscapes I use the Tamron 12mm F2. This little lens has blown me away!Feedback
There is always a photograph when you don't expect it! as I said I really do take my camera everywhere and my best pictures are the ones I have never planned. I do love processing the images just as much as capturing them. We can all take a photograph but what we do with that image afterwards is personal. We create our own style. The HDR effect worked well here and I was glad I tried it. My final advice ....if faced by a giant iguana falling from the sky - don't run, take the picture!
