Blackbrook Zoo Selection

[feriso]

Took a trip to Blackbrook Zoo (near Leek, Staffs) where they are doing 99p entrance until Feb19th - can't beat it.

Anyway a selection of my animal shots and C&C welcome as I'm looking to improve and its my composition atm that is my biggest issue.

#1 - Flamingo

#2 - Pringle

#3 - Slow Coach

#4 - PPPPP Pick up a Penguin

#5 - Errr No

#6 - comparethecustomers.com

I have others if you want to see (more meerkat shots, peacocks etc..)

 

[feriso]

#7 - Bottoms Up

Might add more later....

 

[tdodd]

I'll keep my comments to composition, as otherwise things look quite promising. My comments may seem a bit blunt, but they are honest and I hope you will find them useful...

1. For me this scene is a cluttered mess. Your subject is small in the frame. The background is a busy and clearly contains man made objects and constructions, which I try to avoid including if at all possible. You've got all that dead space above the subject and yet have succeeded in just chopping off the feet. The other birds in the frame contribute nothing to the subject and are just untidy distractions. Some cropping might help, but why shoot this at 85mm when you have at least 200mm in your arsenal? I would suggest finding a better shooting position and tightening your composition.

2. Again we have the obvious man made structures in the shot. To capture that poor creature staring blankly at those wooden slats/planks or whatever they are just seems so sad. Why not wait until the animal is in a better position, or try to coax it to move.

3. Again we have that distracting thing going on in the background. This needs cropping to focus attention fully onto the tortoise. Timing could be better too. You've got the top of its head. Where is the eye? Where is the face? Where is the character of the animal?

4. Now this one I like. Great pose, nicely framed, cheeky look.There are no distractions in the frame and the subject is of good size within it. Lovely. It does look a bit soft though and you might be able to sharpen it up a little and perhaps just increase contrast a tad too. Easily the pick of the bunch for me.

5. I really don't like the shooting angle. I like to try to get close to eye level with my subjects if at all possible. If not possible then I probably won't bother with the shot. I don't especially like seeing the tops of their heads. I like it to appear as though I am in amomngst the creatures, not peering over a wall at them. One of the penguins has a brilliant pose, all arms (I suppose flippers really) in the air, but the magic is lost because you are not engaged with the animal and the raised flipper is kind of lost in with the body and almsost obscuring the eye. Eyes are really important.

6. Not bad, but I don't think the spare meerkat adds to the image. It detracts. I'd simply wait until the coast was clear, or shoot a different animal that was better positioned. Ignoring the spare meerkat I think the main subject is a bit too centred with an excess of space above and behind the animal. Still, as far as the main subject goes I think this is your second best shot. You have the eye, the face and it fills the frame reasonably well. If you'd got rid of the spare part on the right it would have been much better.

7. Wrong eye. The kind of shot which if I ever take will invariably be deleted. It is not interesting to me. It's not artistic or funny. Now, three in a row all doing the same thing, perhaps with a nice reflection, might be artistic, but not this. It's a snapshot. Sorry.

Key points (of course there are always exceptions, but these are good guidelines).....

1. Avoid a distracting background or other distractions in the frame. Change your shooting angle if you need to, or use shallow DOF creatively to blur out the background.
2. Make the sbject large in the frame. Apart from being more interesting, usually, this will help remove the background from the frame.
3. (nearly) Always try to capture the eye, the face, the character.
4. Get on level terms with the animal. Make it look like you are there with it.
5. Timing is important. Wait for the subject to adopt an interesting pose/expression. If it looks towards the camera then even better. If there is something in the way then wait for it to move out of the shot.
6. If you are there for photography, rather than to see every animal on display then take your time. I'd rather come home with 10 or 20 cracking shots than 50 or 100 mediocre ones.

If you want to see the sort of approach I take to zoo photography then have a look at my shots in this thread - http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=288707. There's always room for improvement, so if you have any feedback I'd welcome it.

 

[feriso]

First of all thanks for spending the time to respond. Blunt?.... maybe but at least you've given me useful information and I'd never learn if all I got back was "Ohhhh look nice well done..." anyway I've got thick skin; it takes a lot to annoy me.

I'll respond to what you've said and I'll post a few improvements/other shots I have based on what you've said as it maybe that some I don't rate highly are actually composed better

#2 - I see your point, the reindeer was only in this position for a couple of seconds for this shot; I thought it was an interesting lining up of the reindeer and the shed using thirds(ish). Another one I took that is more action orientated is below.

#3 - I composed this by leaning over the enclosure wall with arm stretch and I used live view to compose the shot. Yes, would have looked better with the head facing towards the camera; I didn't really notice that until I got home (note to self - look at the image on camera a bit more!)

#4 - I agree, the best of this lot. Probably looks soft as the glass it was shot through wasn't particularly clean/clear Maybe if I'd narrowed the aperture it would have improved but then I might ended up with an even noiser pic (oh the troubles of taking photos! )

#6 - OK, if the ones in the background were in focus would that have made it better? Bearing mind what you said about framing the eye and the face how do these fit the bill? The first is just a bit soft in my opinion but the face angle the wrong way on the second.

#7 - Sorry - one that I took to amuse my daughter whilst she was there :thumbsdown:

As for yours; I can't really fault them. Really like the portrait cheetah (#5) the best for me.

Taking your comments into account how about these two :-

#8 -

(Yes, I know its a bit OoF but that aside compo better?)

#9 -

 

[tdodd]

New #2 - A much more engaging photo. Quirky, fun, good eye contact. For me it is a much more interesting shot.

New #6 - I prefer both of these. I guess the angle I'm coming from is that these shots would work best as "portraits" of the animals. Scenic/environental shots are fine too, if the environment is complementary to the creature. If you have things in the scene which don't contribute positively towards the image then I'd try to purposely exclude them. You can do that by carefully selecting your shooting angle, or perhaps the timing of the shot, or by zooming in tightly, or using shallow DOF to blur out the elements you don't want to compete.

Here are a couple of my meerkat shots. In the first one I have a small group shot, but I hope the two outriggers act to frame my subject. We can see the group structure but the main subject stands out. The eye not only has a focal point to draw it in, but also some context for the scene overall.

In the second example the meerkat is completely isolated, not only by being alone, but by strong blurring of the background. Also observe how I am level with the meerkat in this example, rather than shooting down towards the top of its head.

#8 - Doesn't work for me, I'm afraid. Being OOF doesn't help, but why is it in black and white? As for the rest of the scene there is a lot of busy stuff going on, and what looks to me like man made structures in the background. In the foreground there are the errant tail feathers of a bird that hopefully would be out of shot shortly. Here's one of my zoo bird examples. It's nothing special, but the idea is to make the bird the main feature and to try not to have the surrounding compete with it.

#9 - I'm afraid that doesn't work for me either. I don't think it's easy to make a shot like that work either. The shape of the bird's neck makes it almost impossible to make the bird itself a significant feature. The background is also competing strongly for attention. If you had raised your shooting position slightly perhaps you could have used plain grass as a background and blurred it into oblivion with shallow DOF. Also, if you'd come around to the front of the bird I think perhaps some of the body entering the frame might have helped. I do have shot of bird's necks, but not quite like yours. Here's an example....