"Wildlife portraits" is a project where I try to capture animals in a different way than you normally see them. When I saw through some of the images taken off wildlife I found that sometimes they conveyed an expression that gave the viewer a feeling. They could look, proud, thoughtful, sad or happy through the way they behaved or being frozen in a moment of fast movement.
Trying to approach wildlife photography with "portrait" photography in mind was a fun and interesting way to see these subjects in a new way.
Freezing movement
I quickly realised that I had to use really fast shutter speeds to freeze motion completely and light was sometimes a problem. My Godox AD300 Pro or AD600 Pro was used to light some of the scenes when there was to little light. Shutterspeed often ranged from 1/3200sec up to 1/8000sec and lighting the subject was a challenge. The lenses mostly used was the Canon EF 70-200 f4 L IS USM and Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 L IS USM.
Shutter speed 1/8000sec, ISO 800 and f5.0
Lighting
Lighting some of the scenes was accomplished using the Godox AD 300 Pro and AD600 Pro with high speed sync and a snoot or reflector with grid. During daylight I used 1/8 or up to 1/1 flash power.
Shutter speed 1/40 sec, ISO 123 and f5.6
Mood and Color
Blue tones often against the brown skin/feathers or dark moody greens against a red or yellow subject gave a great mood in the images. Color contrast gives a good subject enhancement and focus.
