Up Periscope!

Up Periscope!

 

DoF (Depth of Field) is a creative element that I use often in my photography. A really shallow DoF allows me to blur vegetation to make my intended subject stand out. In this case it was an ostrich – or rather only its head and neck – occasionally peeping up from behind the vegetation where I suppose it was feeding. An image like this also shows that you don’t necessarily need to fill your frame with the subject, and that you can use the environment around it for creativity and/or context. I often fell into the trap of only considering my subject when photographing but now I have trained myself to also try to photograph them in context of their environment. This doesn’t mean I gave up on intimate portraits or think less of them, I still love taking those! I guess what I am trying to say is that even when a subject is very far, or your lens is not long enough there are still pictures to be taken if you can use the environment around your subject creatively.

I photographed this scene in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park on the Upper Dune road.

Techs: Canon 7D | Canon 300 2.8 IS II| f/2.8 | 1/3200 | ISO 100