David Fettes

I went to a talk by David Fettes in Kingston last night.  Fettes is a wildlife photographer, whose trade mark is to try to capture animals from unusual angles or from a different perspective to how they might normally be shot.  He had many images of lions and elephants charging towards him; not a situation everyone would choose to be in!

The presentation was mainly about showing the images and talking about the experience, rather than elaborating on techniques, but the takeaways from that evening are:

• Invest in lenses rather than the camera body; it is better to have a cheaper body and better lenses than the other way round
• Look for natural framing around the subject, e.g. photographing an elephant through the legs of another elephant
• Look for elements of design, e.g. lines, triangles - he actually had an image of three giraffe standing in height order
• Lie on the ground shooting upwards - this makes the animal more impressive
• Focus on the eyes of the subject (the rest can be out of focus but the eyes must be in focus)
• Lie still on the ground for hours so that the animals get used to you being there and make eye contact
• You don't have to go to Africa for wildlife - look around Richmond or Windsor parks

For more information, go to http://www.davidfettes.com/