Friday, May 22, 2009

Within a Hare's Breath

I had a couple of brief sessions with the hares recently to make a change from the birds. A few of the females were looking big so I expect there will be some leverets running around soon. They are a real photographic challenge.

I will start off with a straight head portrait following a very close encounter.
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Happily feeding on some dandelions.
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Despite spending many hours with the hares there is some behaviour I have still not captured. One of them is when they roll around on the ground, another one is when they are stretching. Until this one below recently did a long stretch right in front of me. You can really see the power in these animals and it always makes me smile when someone says 'that's a nice bunny photo' as they are a completely different animal from a rabbit. Its quite easy to see how they can hit 45 mph when in full galloping sprint.
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Fortunately this one was just moving at relatively low speed.
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I had another very close encounter, when one hare ran straight towards me. I always knew that carrot suit would come in useful one day ;). It is always a great feeling when an animal is getting larger and larger in the camera viewfinder. However, this one just kept on advancing until it was too large for the frame and so the last few photos of the sequence have only half ears and legs.
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Its always a pleasure and a privilege to be in such close proximity to these wonderful wild animals.

9 comments:

Emma Anderson said...

Simply beautiful pictures. Congratulations.

FAB said...

Stunning images Rich. I can see that 'closer encounter' definitely made your day.

Ginnymo said...

How beautiful these photos are. You can see every hair on their chinny chin chin..LOL Great shots!!

Jenny said...

Superb shots! It's always such a joy to visit your blog.

Matt Latham said...

Great images Richard - the first and last are special!

Unknown said...

Stunning compositions Rich. Shooting wildlife in close proximity is always a exciting and challenging experience. Fortunately I have had many such opportunities, so I understand where you are coming from.

While all shots are composed well, crisp details and awesome bokeh, for some reason I seem to be liking the first one a lot.

RĂºben Neves said...

A good field work can just turn into great pictures and useful registers beyond wonderful pictures. Just awsome! Congratulations

GillR said...

Seeing your latest post on fredmiranda brought me here. My goodness, what a feast for the eyes this blog is. Absolutely wonderful images, all of them, but the full-on hare just takes my breath away.

Rich Steel said...

Thanks for your kind words. To me the close encounter is the essence of wildlife photography. There is little to beat one to one time with an animal of bird at close quarters while it goes about its daily business.

Cheers

Rich

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