Taking photos is partly luck, but you can push the odds…

I'll admit from the start that I'm a complete amateur when it comes to photography and a good proportion of the photos I take are close to dreadful. The few here – and those on my site – are the results of what are now several thousand images. At least digital is cheap :)That said, the several months with the fox have taught me some useful tricks about positioning and composing.

When I started out mostly I was simply managing to snap the camera, and the earlier photos on my website show just the results fairly well. Lots of poorly composed pictures. But I did snap a lot, so occasionally a decent picture would emerge, and certainly the later galleries are more selective. My favourites tend to be when I am shooting upward, or against a solid background. The trick then became one of posing the fox! Not the easiest job in the world.

Fortunately our garden is on several levels and has plenty of steps and low walls. This means that getting an upward shot is relatively straightforward. The fox is also partial to snacks so a few strategically placed tidbits will tend to get him to go where I want. The other benefit of a regular visitor is that his behaviour is predictable, so getting into place – and experimenting – is made easier. The picture below is a typical pose. If you look at the training foxes post of a few days ago you can see the fox waiting for an egg in the first picture. This is now standard behaviour. But immediately the egg arrives it backs off to allow us to place it, generally moving to the top of the white wall and lurking in the thick shrub before jumping back down to retrieve the treat. The photo below (taken tonight.. see what I mean about predictable behaviour) is that middle stage. I used a slight zoom (less than 2x) and have tweaked the lighting slightly.