Last week I talked about using (lots of) negative space to draw attention to the important parts of a photograph, and to give an impression of the environment. This week, I’m going to do the opposite. We’re going to talk about penguin portraits!
Let’s be honest – it’s not often you get the chance to be so close to wildlife. So when a curious Gentoo chick (or other animal) wanders up to you, take advantage of that and make some adorable portraits! This applies to just about anything – make the most of every chance you get, because there’s no guarantee it will come around again.
The key with portraits is to get the eyes sharp. And to get a nice angle on the subject. And a nice background. So there’s a few things to think about! It’s awful when you’ve had a great experience photographing something, and when you look back through your photos there’s something distracting in the background like a stick or another animal photobombing. Being aware of little details makes better photographs.
You don’t have to be right up your subjects nose to take a ‘portrait’ though. A whole penguin makes a pretty good portrait. Some negative space may have snuck into this image – but that’s what you get from shooting in the snow! The posture, eye contact and little bits on snow on the flippers all come together to give a distinct Adelie impression.
Capturing the character of your subject is the basis of a portrait that is more than a snapshot. You can experiment with taking ‘portraits’ of things without including them directly – like I did in this photograph. Then you can always go for the cute factor and do a family portrait. The interaction between the penguins is key here – they’re all looking at each other and it captures a common behaviour – chicks begging the parent for food.
My favourite portrait from the trip is the Chinstrap penguin from Hannah Point. There’s just something about the eye contact and the beads of rain on the feathers that really make this photo for me. Once you get all the basics down, it’s the little details that really make portraits stand out.
