I was waiting, unsuccessfully, for some kit foxes to emerge from their den at sunset. They never showed, so there I was, stuck with a 500mm lens on my tripod and a lot of time on my hands. It was a glorious sunset, throwing shadows on the ridges of the Temblor Range (home of the San Andreas Fault).
Normally, I would look for a classic "Sierra Club Calendar Composition" with a wide-angle foreground leading to the distant hills.But here the foreground was dull and already in shadow. So instead, I used what I had, and looked for compositions through my 500mm lens. The extreme focal length forced me to look at the landscape as a collection of compressed patterns and light, almost an abstract: simply said, a picture that I could not have taken with any other lens. The lesson: look beyond the box, and experiment with the dramatic change in perspective that telephoto lenses can offer - even when that's not what you were after in the first place...
WOW! I love this Kevin, it’s so perfectly balanced, and the colors are amazing. I am still trying to figure out how there are pale spots in the background, and dark spots in the foreground, isn’t Nature amazing??
Wish I could stretch my budget to include a 500mm! 🙂
Thanks Chandira – nice to hear from you.
Beautiful image Kevin – a great study of shadow and light.
Back at you, Ian!
Kevin, I enjoy the light and shadows play across the scene. Did you ever get the kit fox photos?
Good to hear from you, John. I had a hard 10 days with the foxes – they were moving dens a lot, and because of the heat, waiting until after dark to come out. VERY different from a month earlier when it was still cool. Just about the only shots I got were with camera traps at night – only fair, I’m afraid. No one said it was gonna be easy!