With ever improving auto focus technology and amazing telephoto lenses, the close up pictures of wildlife are quickly becoming a dime a dozen.
It's time to think outside the box.
The close up shots of wildlife will tell you what they look like, but that's about all they tell you.
I think that is getting a little boring.
I want a picture that is going to tell a story about the animal.
I want to show how they live in their environment.
Including the animal's habitat in the photograph is an excellent way to do that.
There had been a lot of turkey coming through my area lately, so I wanted to take advantage of that.
Rather than trying to get the close up shot of one of the tom turkeys, I decided I wanted to tell more of a story about turkey in general.
I backed off my zoom lens and started taking pictures of them as a group.
One of my first pictures reflects that there is one male that will be the dominant male in the group.
He will normally be "leading" the group as they are looking for food.
A group of turkeys is called a "rafter".
It was obvious which male was dominant in this group as he was the larger adult male and had the longest "beard".
The beard is a group of feathers that hang down from the male turkeys breast.
My first picture was one of him leading the rafter into a group of oak trees.
My purpose of the second shot was to show how they inter act with each other.
The adult males will tend to stay together at the front of the rafter.
The younger male turkeys are called "jakes".
They tend to stay together just behind the toms.
They are like the teenagers of the group.
They tend to run around and get into trouble.
The adult males are the ones that keep them in line.
You can see them fluffing up, spreading their wings and running at the jakes, letting them know that they are in charge.
The adult males will also keep these younger jakes from getting too friendly with the females.
My next photograph was showing how the females, or hens, inter acted within the rafter.
The hens are not as brightly colored as the males, so it is easy to tell them apart.
Normally in the spring you don't find toms and hens in the same group.
The toms will separate from the group and stay together.
But this was in the fall and the hens, toms and jakes were all traveling together.
The hens stay in the back of the rafter.
They are definitely the followers and will go wherever the toms lead them.
This shot was of the entire group, being lead by the toms first, then the jakes and lastly the hens following along behind.
By backing up and showing the group as a whole, I was able to show not only how they inter acted with each other, but also how they traveled in a group.
Incorporated in my pictures were the woods where they lived as well as the natural grasses that they would strip the seeds from to eat.
I could show them scratching the ground looking for seeds and bugs.
I wasn't just showing you what they looked like, I was telling a story about how they lived.
It's time to think outside the box.
The close up shots of wildlife will tell you what they look like, but that's about all they tell you.
I think that is getting a little boring.
I want a picture that is going to tell a story about the animal.
I want to show how they live in their environment.
Including the animal's habitat in the photograph is an excellent way to do that.
There had been a lot of turkey coming through my area lately, so I wanted to take advantage of that.
Rather than trying to get the close up shot of one of the tom turkeys, I decided I wanted to tell more of a story about turkey in general.
I backed off my zoom lens and started taking pictures of them as a group.
One of my first pictures reflects that there is one male that will be the dominant male in the group.
He will normally be "leading" the group as they are looking for food.
A group of turkeys is called a "rafter".
It was obvious which male was dominant in this group as he was the larger adult male and had the longest "beard".
The beard is a group of feathers that hang down from the male turkeys breast.
My first picture was one of him leading the rafter into a group of oak trees.
My purpose of the second shot was to show how they inter act with each other.
The adult males will tend to stay together at the front of the rafter.
The younger male turkeys are called "jakes".
They tend to stay together just behind the toms.
They are like the teenagers of the group.
They tend to run around and get into trouble.
The adult males are the ones that keep them in line.
You can see them fluffing up, spreading their wings and running at the jakes, letting them know that they are in charge.
The adult males will also keep these younger jakes from getting too friendly with the females.
My next photograph was showing how the females, or hens, inter acted within the rafter.
The hens are not as brightly colored as the males, so it is easy to tell them apart.
Normally in the spring you don't find toms and hens in the same group.
The toms will separate from the group and stay together.
But this was in the fall and the hens, toms and jakes were all traveling together.
The hens stay in the back of the rafter.
They are definitely the followers and will go wherever the toms lead them.
This shot was of the entire group, being lead by the toms first, then the jakes and lastly the hens following along behind.
By backing up and showing the group as a whole, I was able to show not only how they inter acted with each other, but also how they traveled in a group.
Incorporated in my pictures were the woods where they lived as well as the natural grasses that they would strip the seeds from to eat.
I could show them scratching the ground looking for seeds and bugs.
I wasn't just showing you what they looked like, I was telling a story about how they lived.
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