Rabbits Out of Nowhere

Our daughter, Lydia, went for a walk late this afternoon. On her way out and then back again she was surprised to see a baby fawn lying right next to the front porch of house!

Motivated by her sighting, I grabbed my camera, put the 70-200mm lens on, and went out the door. It was just starting to rain and the cloud cover was blocking some of the light. Before I even took ten steps out our back door, I spotted a rabbit. It was a young one and appeared out of nowhere! I causally moved about as if just wandering around and was able to get closer. The light was too dim for a 200 ISO setting, so I bumped it up to 400. At an aperture of f/2.8 I was getting anywhere from 1/250 – 1/325 shutter speed. This was just enough to allow me to shoot handheld and get a few nice shots.

Before long, this little bunny moved into the brush, apparently having enough of my presence. So I moved on to another rabbit sitting just beyond our driveway. This was an adult rabbit. I observed and clicked the shutter release and then watched in amazement as he stretched out his neck to get some grass to eat. This was repeated several times as the continuous frames were blasting away from my end. Then, almost as if on cue, this rabbit started cleaning his back foot!

Wildlife is incredible and completely amazing to me. I am known to say, “There’s no place like the mountains.” I believe this deep down in my soul for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the wonderful wildlife I get to see and photograph!

Today I was hoping to photograph a fawn but ended up photographing two rabbits who seemed to emerge out of nowhere. I just happened upon them and I’m so glad I did!

What do you think of these rabbit photos?

Mental Checklists

When you are on an important photo shoot getting the shot is important. There is little room for mistakes, which is why shooting in RAW is so helpful. We all know that. But there is nothing better than getting the shot from the camera to begin with.

That’s why a mental checklist can help us capture the shot we are after. Your mental checklist might include things like White Balance, ISO setting, Aperture, and Shutter Speed. This morning I was shooting in very difficult stage lighting. I couldn’t figure out at first why I kept getting blurry shots. Then I realized that I had not set my aperture properly. Obviously, I did not cover my mental checklist.

What is onĀ  your mental checklist? Do you have a standard operating procedure to use this checklist? Plan ahead, create a mental checklist and use it!