wildlife & Nature
Ross Hoddinott shows how he strips his nature images down to their essentials
Ross says this dramatic macro image differed from the norm before it was even shot. “A lot of macro shots are opportunistic because you’re obviously dealing with nature. This is a shot I pre-visualised. I’d wanted to take an image of an insect backlit against the moon for a while. However, I quickly realised that I couldn’t do it because of the technical implications of shooting in low light, finding the subject, etc. So I decided to use the sun, then processed it using a cooler white balance to make it look moonlit.”
Ross’s next challenge was to find a subject in the right place. “Local knowledge is important in nature photography, because you need to know where the sun is and where to look for subjects. In this case, it was Tamar Lakes in Devon. I got up at around 5am, and found a resting male banded demoiselle with its wings open. (They usually rest with them shut.) The open wings made for a better silhouette, because the profile was much clearer.” Ross trimmed a few grasses nearby to get a clean view of the insect, then got himself into position, waiting for the sun to appear. “I used a 200mm macro lens, which allowed me to magnify the ‘preciseness’ of the insect a bit more. The biggest challenge was making sure that
the insect fitted within the sphere of the sun. If the tail or head overlapped, it would have merged into the darkness. The sun moves quickly as it rises, so I had to regularly alter my position. I like the way the composition is a bit off-centre, and how the reed drifts through the shot.”
Speaking of macros in general, Ross believes that many people make the mistake of going for a very simple, almost scientific close-up of the subject. “I encourage a creative approach. Also, people often get cluttered, messy backdrops, where the subject gets lost. I favour shooting with a shallow depth of field, or having some distance between the subject and the background. You can also shoot against the sky, which creates a nice backdrop. A shallow depth of field creates a diffused background and helps your subject to pop, but it means that you have to focus very carefully. I advise students to use a tripod and zoom in via Live View so that they can manually place the focus very precisely.”
Ross also counsels against becoming fixated on the rule of thirds and other compositional devices. “Whatever you shoot, the most important thing is to find balance in your shots. Sometimes an image will just look balanced, even if it doesn’t follow any rules. You can conform to rules and get something that lacks natural harmony. Trust your instincts.”