I have decided to create a photo book of wildlife photography, supported by elements of landscape and adventure photography.
I will be visiting the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve in northern Iceland with Wildlife Worldwide Travel. Hornstrandir Nature reserve has the most dense population of Arctic Foxes in the world. Dixon, B (2022) from Lonely Planet refers to Hornstrandir as the last wilderness of Europe and it is only reachable by boat, has no phone or internet networks and it lies “less than one latitudinal degree south of the Arctic Circle” (Parks, 2015). This is why I will be titling my book ‘The Edge of The Arctic’.
The population of foxes found at Hornstrandir are predominantly the blue morph type which are specifically adapted to foraging on the rocky coasts of the area. There is a possibility of finding an Arctic Fox with a white winter coat but these are far more rare than the blue morph type in these areas, while the blue morph Arctic fox is far more uncommon overall.
Moodboard
I hope to show a variety of different styles of photos of the foxes. I plan to capture foxes on their own, exhibiting behaviours as well as foxes interacting with each other or the environment. I will aim to get both environmental portraits and close-up portraits of the foxes initially before taking a more creative approach to my photography and using techniques such as back-lighting and, if possible, slow shutter photography, wider angles and possibly flash photography.
I have envisaged some bucket-list photos that I would like to achieve, for example I strive to capture a photo of a fox, silhouetted on a ridge against a night sky with the northern lights. While it is unlikely that all of the elements needed for this photo will align, I have planned and practiced the technical skills, so that if the opportunity arises I will be in the best position to capture the photo.
Animal Portraits by Konsta Punkka
I have also drawn inspiration from other photo books. One of those books being “Animal Portraits” by Konsta Punkka. In his book Punkka uses both animal portraits as well as establishing landscape shots of their habitat. I want to do the same in my book. The images in Punkkas book appear to be highly processed and, in my opinion, over sharpened. This is something I plan to avoid in my images, instead decreasing overall clarity in the edit and applying localised sharpening to the images where necessary.
Images: Charly Savely, Jack Anstey, Bret Charman.
Reflections on the Trip
My trip to Hornstrandir was brilliant, opportunities to photograph the foxes were plentiful and we saw a total of 5 or 6 individual foxes. The landscape was incredible and the weather, while changeable, was brilliant for photographing the foxes.
Some of the foxes had very little fear of people, one in particular had realised that it was less scared of us, than it was of the other foxes which were trying to drive it out of the territory. This meant that the fox typically came near us for protection which allowed for some extremely close up images. Most of the close up images I took on this trip were of that individual, which I called Shadow.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture the lifestyle/travel images I hoped for as logistically this was difficult while travelling. My cameras were usually packed away and out of reach as we travelled by small plane, boat and finally a zodiac. While travelling by boat, and especially the zodiac we had to put our camera bags in waterproof bags or bin liners, in case of an accident!
I was, however, able to capture many images of the landscape as well as the foxes which could be used in my photo book.
Kit, what and why?
Cameras:
Nikon Z9 - The Nikon Z9 is my main camera, it is great for wildlife photography due to its fast autofocus and ability to shoot 20 frames per second RAW images. It is also great for landscape photography with a 45MP full frame sensor.
Nikon Z fc - The Nikon Z fc is my back up camera, this is great for travelling or lifestyle images and is usually kept somewhere more accessible than the Nikon Z9.
Lenses:
Nikkor 800mm 6.3 S - This lens is great for capturing subjects at a distance as well as picking out details of the landscape.
Some of my favourite portraits were taken on the lens. The focal length of 800mm and the relatively wide aperture of 6.3 created a very shallow depth of field within the images. This means the the foreground and backgrounds were very much out of focus, creating a very dreamy effect on the images.
Nikkor 100-400 4.5-5.6 S - The 100-400 is a brilliant all around lens for wildlife and landscape, the versatility offers is very useful for subjects that get closer to you and the close focusing can be very good for picking out details of close subjects.
This is the lens I used the most on the trip, the foxes were often too close for the 800mm so the versatility of the 100-400 did prove useful.
Nikkor 24-70 2.8 S - The 24-70 is a great focal length for anything from landscape, lifestyle or even very close wildlife subjects.
I used this lens a lot for my landscapes, as well as wide angle photos of the foxes when they came very close.
Nikkor 14-24 2.8 S - This is the lens I use for extremely wide landscape photos, or night sky photos such as the northern lights if the opportunity arises.
I used this lens during the brief window we had in the cloud to capture the Northern Lights. The extremely wide focal length and the fast aperture proved useful for this.
Nikkor 40mm 2.0 SE - This lens is mostly used on the Z fc and offers a 60mm full frame equivalent focal length on that camera. It is great for portraits or lifestyle/travel images.
Nikkor 28mm 2.8 SE - This is another lens for use on the Z fc and offers a 40mm full frame equivalent focal length which is great for wider lifestyle/travel images.
Filters:
Kase Wolverine Filters - A filter kit that includes ND filters for long exposure landscape photographs as well as a polariser for removing glare from water etc.
Photography Techniques/Considerations
Shooting technique:
Exposing correctly for the foxes is challenging as they are a dark subject in a white landscape. The type of metering mode I use as well as exposure compensation is important.
I typically have my camera set to manual, but with auto ISO. Meaning I control the shutter speed and aperture but the camera uses its internal metering to decide the ISO. I usually use the matrix metering mode. The matrix metering mode evaluates the exposure of the whole frame. If the frame is predominantly white the camera will underexpose the image and if the fox is large in the frame, making the frame predominantly dark, the camera will likely overexpose the image. This is due to the way the metering works, which essentially tries to make all tonal values mid tones to get an overall average for the scene. In basic terms, bright scenes are made darker, turning white to “middle” grey, and dark scenes are made lighter, turning black to “middle”grey.
According to Mastin Labs (2023), “middle gray is the very center tone between absolute back and absolute white”.
This means that I have to be very aware of my exposure while photographing the foxes. In order to monitor and ensure I correctly expose my images I make use of the histogram preview on my camera, and ensure that I expose to the right (Cox, S. 2022) without clipping my highlights (Ambrose, D. 2020). Using this technique helps me ensure that the snow remains white in my images and allows me to capture all of the detail available in both the snow and the foxes.
During the trip I was using exposure compensation to achieve the above. My exposure compensation typically ranged from -2.0 EV when the fox was smaller in the frame to +.03 EV when the fox was large in the frame. The techniques I discuss above were successful in correctly exposing my images, but also challenging as you had to constantly adjust as the foxes moved closer towards the camera, or further away.
Ethical Considerations:
Ethical Considerations for this trip revolve mostly around the foxes welfare and ensuring we don’t change the foxes natural behaviour or scare the foxes. The use of long lenses mean that you can photograph them from a distance to ensure you don’t get too close. (Kaula, C. 2023)
I personally don’t agree with feeding wild animals for photography purposes but during the trip it was apparent that the foxes associate the lodge with food, scavenging food waste which was buried beneath rocks on the beach for composting. I don’t think this was a major issue as this behaviour is a natural one for foxes as this is how they scavenge for most of their food, finding sea urchins and other food sources left by the retreating tide.
I use various techniques to capture my landscape photos, such as bracketing, long exposures and the use of Polarising and ND filters.
Bracketing:
Bracketing my photos will be a useful technique for high contrast scenes, eg. bright sunny days. Bracketing my photos means I capture either 3 or 5 images, from underexposed, correctly exposed and overexposed. Doing this means I increase the dynamic range of the data captured than what is possible in 1 single exposure. This means I can record information in the darkest and brightest parts of the image in contrasty scenes. Especially helpful for when there is direct sunlight on snow, but with darker elements or shadows in the photograph as well.
Long Exposure:
Long exposure photographs are great for showing movement within a landscape, or essential for capturing images in extremely low light conditions. Long exposure photographs mean that the sensor is exposed to the light for a longer period of time. This means that even the faintest of lights are picked up by the camera in dark conditions but also means the any motion is recorded as motion blur.
I used long exposures to capture images of the Aurora, typically anywhere between 2 to 15 seconds so that not to capture too much motion blur so that you can still see the structure of the aurora. The longer exposures also meant that I could capture more of the light data emitting from the aurora so that it appears bright and colourful in my images.
Filters:
ND filters limit the amount of light entering the camera, allowing you to take long exposure photographs or reduce your shutter speed in bright conditions. Polarising filters allow light waves of a certain polarisation though while blocking light waves of a different polarisation (Science World, 2023). This means that as you rotate the filter it can reduce glare on water or other glossy surfaces, or make the sky appear a darker shade of blue.
I didn’t use any ND filters for my landscape photos, any waterfalls were frozen so a long exposure wouldn’t have been useful for capturing the motion of the waterfalls and I found that I usually wanted a faster shutter for my landscape images for capturing certain elements such as snowflakes falling. I did, however, use polarising filters to reduce the glare on the sea which allowed for more vivid blues in both the water and the sky in my images.
Photos and Images Chosen:
Front Cover
I knew before the trip that I wanted to capture intimate, detailed photos of the foxes and this was one of my favourite images of the trip. I decided to use this as the cover as I believe it is a strong image of the fox but still leaves some mystery to the content of the book.
Image 1
For the first photo within my book I wanted to use an establishing shot of the area to give context and place to where the trip was and the environment that the foxes live in. You can also see the lodge I stayed at, small and in the distance in this photo.
Image 3
The third image within my book shows fox prints in the snow, leading to the distant hills. I decided to use this image here to give a hint to the wildlife that comes later in the book.
Image 5
For the fifth image within my book I decided to use this one. It introduces the face of the fox but it it still obscured by the snowy foreground. I feel this photo also shows the fox as an illusive predator.
Image 7
This is the seventh photo of my book and I decided to use this one as it is the first clear portrait of the fox, but it is still at a distance. In this photo the fox looks less threatening and more curiously towards the camera. There is eye contact and intimacy between the viewer of the photo and the fox.
Image 9
The ninth photo of the book is my personal favourite. This was actually one of the first images I took of the fox and I captured it in a blizzard, the fox has a face full of snow but still looks curious about the camera and seems unbothered by the conditions. I think think photo is testament to the hardiness of these animals. It continues the visual narrative in showing the fox as a curious, hardy and brave animal as it gets closer to the viewer and the camera.
This photo was one of the more difficult photos to capture and process due to the blizzard. The camera often pre focused on snow flakes and the edit was difficult due to the hazy nature of the blizzard.
Rear Cover
I decided to use this image of the northern lights on the rear of my book. I think it compliments the front cover well in that the two main subjects of the book is the landscape, or the place as well as the Arctic Fox. This photograph didn’t fit in to the visual narrative as well as other images but I still wanted it to be a part of the book as it was a big part of the experience and an interesting element of the Arctic.
Iceland Map
I wanted to include a map of the area I was visiting to give the reader/viewer a better idea of where it was if they don’t know. I tried to create my own illustrated maps but eventually decided to license and use this one that I found on a stock website. I added a photo and some text to highlight the Hornstrandir Nature reserve so that the reader can see it in the context of Iceland as a whole.
Image 2
For the second photo within my book I decided to use this photo of the lodge in a blizzard. I think it works in terms of visual narrative with the previous photo of with the lodge in the distance. It also shows how isolated the lodge is and the hostile environment.
Image 4
This is the fourth image in my book and I decided to use it because it reveals more of the subject of the book, but the fox is backlit and in shadow so it still hasn't fully introduced the fox as a character.
I knew I wanted to try and capture more creative photos and not just portraits of the foxes or straight forward landscape photos of the area. We only had one morning where there was direct sunlight so I took the opportunity to capture a backlight image. Exposing for the highlights and letting the shadows fall away.
Image 6
The sixth image of my book goes back to the landscape. I noticed the morning light casting shadows across the snow on the slopes of the distance mountains. I wanted to take this opportunity to capture a more abstract landscape photo that really shows the beauty, details and textures of the snowy landscape. I believe this continues the visual narrative by showing the details of the world these foxes live in.
Image 8
For the eighth photo within the book I decided to use this wide angle photo of the fox. It was taken at 24mm so the fox was very close. I wanted to include this image here as it combines both the landscape and the fox, which are the 2 main subjects of the book in to one photograph. It shows the fox closer to the viewer but still alert and guarded, as well as the harsh environment and brooding clouds.
Image 10
This is the final image of my photo book. I chose this image as it shows the fox curled up and ready to sleep. This shows that the fox is totally comfortable with the presence of the photographer and completes the narrative in which the fox is slowly introduced and becomes more comfortable with the viewer.
Equipment Images
I decided to include a page dedicated to discussing the camera equipment I used - partly because I think this can be important and interesting for other photographers but I also hope to collaborate with Nikon on similar projects in the future. I believe that including a page dedicated to Nikon equipment and how it helped be capture the images in my book is an attractive advert to Nikon on how I can provide them value.
Reflecting on this image
I think there is some room for improvement in the image I used here - I would like to re-do these photos but line the items up a little bit better and remove unnecessary items such as the hard drive and card reader.
Images I didn’t Include
By far the biggest challenge in creating this photo book was selecting the 10 main images to use while keeping in mind the visual narrative. I feel I could have created a much bigger piece of work with the images I captured and included other threads of narrative about the lives of the foxes.
I captured a number of images of the foxes interacting, as the new dominant male tried to assert control of the territory. I also captured the dominant female calling for a new mate throughout the day until finally at the end of the day I captured an image of the new male and dominant female walking in to the distant mountains together. I would have liked to include these, however it was a different narrative to that of a book. In a larger book I could have included this part of the story.
I also captured a range of portraits and environmental photographs of the foxes, as well as numerous landscape photos. I could have used many of these in the final book but I had to pick what I believed were the strongest images that fit the specific narrative of the book.
Design
Paper
I decided that my book should be printed on white premium photo lustre paper. I wanted to maintain a clean, contrasty feel to the images and book itself so this paper was the most suitable. I proofed different paper types on Lightroom, using the techniques and methods described in the below video by Nigel Danson (Danson, N. 2023).
Fonts
Mayfair Display - I used this as the titles on the cover of the book as it is a strong title font and aesthetically pleasing.
Philosopher - I used this for most of the text inside the book as it is still a strong, stylised font but less of a title font than Mayfair Display.
American Typewriter - I used this font sparingly within the book, just for the coordinates and labelling of the map as I believed the typewriter style suited this part of the book best
Reflecting on the Physical Book
Overall I am relatively happy with the physical copy of my book, however, there are a few areas I think there is room for improvement and I would like to make some changes if I am to print more copies of the book.
Font - I believe that the fonts chosen for titles etc are appropriate, but the font chosen for the main bodies of text is the same font as the titles, I would like to change this to be more readable. I would also make the text for the main body of text smaller. I think the text is too large and this makes the book appear more of a children’s book.
Print quality/paper used - I feel that the print quality is not as good as I would like it to be. There appears to be some printing marks on the images, the DPI appears to be too low on some images and they don’t appear high quality. This could be due to the paper or the printing process itself. If I am to print more copies of this book I would select a higher quality paper and even consider litho printing as opposed to digital printing. B&B Press (2023) state that “traditionally litho printing produced products of a higher quality than simple digital”, so perhaps this method of printing will improve the image quality of my book.
I have really enjoyed creating this phonebook, I intend to use my photography to create bodies of work and not just single images. I think that it is very important to have images that show a narrative as well as a tangible, physical result from a photography or any creative project.
Bibliography:
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Reference List:
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Cox, S. (2022) Exposing to the Right Explained. Available at: https://photographylife.com/exposing-to-the-right-explained (Accessed: 7 May 2023)
Danson, N (2023) How I EXPORT from LIGHTROOM for PERFECT Prints | for Lab or Home from [video].Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=687pWez0tyY (Accessed: 18 February 2023)
Dixon, B. (2022) The ultimate guide to Hornstrandir, Europe’s last wilderness. Available at: https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/guide-to-hornstrandir (Accessed: 13 February 2023)
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