Look at You

Let me finish the photo series I took in South Africa with this one. I was walking nearby the camp and was able to get quite close to the animal featured on the image. The backlight created a beautiful separation from the background and I was very happy about the result. I have also recently photographed several engagements and weddings, so next time I promise to post more of these photos. Camera spec: Canon 40D with Canon 70-200 F4 at 200mm, F4 @ 1/250, ISO 800.

Zebras in Backlight

One of my favourite animal photos from my trip to South Africe are these two zebras. The image is compositionally interesting but what sells it for me is the light. I know that backlighting works very well for human portraits and now I know that it suits animals equally well ... Camera spec: Canon 40D with Canon 70-200 4L at 200mm, F5.0 @ 1/400, ISO 200.

Three Times Framed

Another photo from the City of Brno, at the hill called Petrov, right below the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul. The pillars provide an excellent shooting location. I decided to frame my model Katerina in a perfectly symmetric composition. The first frame is given by the borders of the photo, the second frame are the outside pillars and the last frame is formed by the pillars at the background. The repeating patters make the composition interesting. In order to break the symmetry, I asked my model to take a slightly asymmetric pose. Light is ambient with a rim light from the back provided by my 580EX flash. You may wonder where was the light placed. Well, I cheated little bit. As there was no way to hide it behind the model, it was actually placed on a monopod and my assistant (hiding behind the right pillar) was holding it about 3 meters behind my model. See the attached image as it came out of the camera. The stick of the monopod was then removed using the clone tool in Lightroom 3.0. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II at 85mm, F4 @ 1/160, ISO 200.