Pixiq

Rarely am I motivated to take pictures of groups of people; yet I repeatedly take family portraits of animals interacting. This has made me ponder – which is easier?

With animals, the downside is that you cannot ask them to look at the camera simultaneously; you have to go with the flow and make do with what you see. In addition, apart from using flash on the camera or on a bracket at the side, the only way you can get backlighting is to use natural light with a family of wild birds or mammals.

The plus side is that once baby animals find a play object they may be content to play with it for some time.  Animals are also creatures of habit and will follow favorite paths or visit the same feeding places for several days in a row – providing there is plentiful food. Therefore, if the weather is bad or the light poor, there may be other chances to work with a family group.    

Young ducklings, cygnets and goslings remain fairly close to their parents as a tight knit family unit, when it is easy to get shots of the family interacting.  Newly hatched cygnets are especially appealing when they hitch a ride on a parent as they swim on water, especially if a small head can be captured as it peeks out beneath a wing.  At this stage, the young birds are brooded at night beneath the wings of an adult, where they gain some protection against nocturnal predators – including foxes.

Day by day, bolder youngsters venture further afield from their parents in their quest to explore their surroundings.  However, they do this at their peril. If there are any hawk-eyed herons nearby and the parents are not speedy enough to chase away the predator, the brood size inevitably diminishes.

Since you cannot build up a rapport with animals, how do you work? Firstly, you have to make sure you work at a distance which does not spook them, so they remain relaxed. Birds that nest out in the open on water, such as grebes, coots and moorhens, will return to this fixed point. When one adult is incubating or keeping the chicks warm after they first hatch out, there are opportunities to see the young birds peeking out when the parents change over nest duties.

In Africa, I like to work in an open jeep with the camera on a tripod so it can be panned around 360º if necessary.  So I can have a fluid composition – especially with a pride of resting lions which are constantly moving around – I opt for a zoom lens and the Nikon 200-400mm f/4 is my favorite for groups of larger animals.

When several animals are on the move at the same time, composition has to be instinctive, because any hesitation and the shot will be lost. I try to avoid too many bodies overlapping one another because they end up as a higgledy piggledy confusion, which is not easy on the eye.

All mammals, but especially primates, have pliable faces, so it is possible to capture quite different moods – including fear and anger.

I guess the best thing about photographing animal families is their unpredictability – which helps to keep the adrenalin flowing. You never know when you set out whether it will be a good or bad day.  In that respect, it is even more of a lottery than shooting groups of people inside or out.  Outdoor family groups are more akin to taking wild animals in the field in that they have more room to interact with each other so that more spontaneous moments are likely to be captured – especially if people are combined with animals!