The longer I’ve left blogging about our garden foxes, the more difficult it has been to work out what to talk about. I had been hoping for fox cubs, but despite clearly having given birth to a brood, Wolfy (our semi-resident vixen) has thus far not brought any of her offspring into the garden. Given the amount of time that has now passed, I doubt we’ll see them. So, instead I’ve spent the past few months developing new ways of taking the same old photos of a garden fox.
The main innovation (for me) has been finally to get the flash off the camera. This creates a more realistic sense of shadow and depth in the final image. Here’s an example of what I mean. The fox is Stumpy, a year old male who is missing half his brush. Apart from that though, he is very handsome and has a fine coat.
For that kind of photo I’ve had the flash positioned at about 45 degrees to my right, but I’ve recently gone slightly more extreme.
It started a few nights ago when Wolfy took a close interest in the remote flash unit which, as you can see, is positioned at ground level.
A day or so later, she wandered in front of the flash, allowing me to get this shot of her her, almost entirely backlit.
Given my liking of dark backgrounds and backlit photography, I decided to push it a step further by placing the remote flash at the rear of the garden. This meant I would be facing the flash, with the fox (hopefully) in the middle. My first attempt was last night, and – as seems to be her habit – Wolfy’s first reaction was to go and investigate the flash unit.
Having decided that it wasn’t a threat she started to ignore it, and moved forward to the scattered food scraps and peanuts. That placed her nicely between me and the flash. These are the resultant shots.
Those were all a first attempt at this and I’m certainly happy enough with the results to know that it’s something to develop. The main refinements will be in positioning the flash and adjusting the strength of light. Plus of course persuading Wolfy to point her ears forward!
Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 1DX Mark II and EF 70-200mm f/4.0L IS II USM lens. I used a Canon 580EXII flash unit as the controller and a 430EXII unit for the actual flash
Darko
14 Jun 2020I thought it would be startled when a flash goes off but it seems Wolfy understands the technology in a simple way – it is not a threat. Nice photographs.
Words
15 Jun 2020She’s generally ok with the flash, but some of the foxes do get spooked. With this she was just a bit surprised that the light was coming from the wrong direction, but soon got used to it.
Aurora Stone
14 Jun 2020Stunning!
Words
15 Jun 2020Thanks!