Photographing animals is rarely an exact science!
Photo Credit Neil Calbrade
A customer said to me some time ago that it must be much harder to photograph wild animals, wolves for example, than to photograph the domestic ones like the Highland cattle. My reply was that usually wild animals are much harder to find-assuming your aim is to photograph truly wild animals and not ones in zoos or collections. However, once you have found your animal, they are all pretty much unpredictable and need time, and concentration to capture just the right image. You also rarely get quite this close to a wild animal!
Of course, if you concentrate a bit too hard on your subject there's a chance something unexpected might happen to you in the meantime. Photographing Highland calves in one of my favourite spots on Barnham Cross Common near Thetford last night, I was engrossed in trying to capture photos of one of the smaller calves in the woodland. I was vaguely aware of the other guy coming up behind me, for safety's sake it is best not to be completely oblivious around big animals! However he seemed pretty relaxed so I ignored him and let him get on with having a closer look-until he started eating my hair at least!
The popular Red calf image from last year was taken here. The current batch of calves are still very small so I have hopes of getting some more images of them soon.
(If you fancy this guy as a print you can see him on the website here)
Being very young and possibly not having been handled much they are a little bit bargy at the moment. I would always advise people not to get too close to Highlands or any other cattle they don't know, but these guys were marching up to us and head butting. No doubt in a few days they will be more used to seeing people and will get out of the way when approached. Until then, I will treat them with sensible caution, they are very small and cute but can still deliver a solid head butt!
