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Image Description
I photographed this Eurasian Red Squirrel last month in Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland.
Technical Details
Sony a1, Sony 200-600mm @ 448mm, manual exposure, f/8 @ 1/1600th, ISO 1250
Amazing, confounding, surprising. How on earth did you ever get this image? The detail of the ears, face, and front paws is wonderful, especially against the blurred background.
Wow! Laughed out loud then stopped to look at the details and colours. I like the depth of field as it gives dimension to the photo.
To be very picky I have mixed feelings about the tell foliage at the bottom as it distracts a bit from the beautiful red and green complementary colours. However, it does help to balance the image with equal distance from the squirrel to the edges. It would be interesting to try cloning out the yellow.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. Glad you all liked it. I shot many, many frames of these jumping squirrels to get a few really good ones. They were extremely fast. I averaged 6 frames per jump at Sony’s high speed frame rate. I left the moss at the bottom of the frame as it was because I felt the squirrel needed some place obvious to land. I’m not sure it would be so obvious if I toned it down.
Interesting that you mention Grey Squirrel, Mike. I learned that the Grey Squirrel introduced from North America out-competes the Red Squirrel and has caused it to decline in the UK. But with culling of Grey Squirrels, and most interesting (!) the increase in the number of Pine Martins, which prey on Grey Squirrels but not Red ones, is helping keep the Grey Squirrel population in check if not reducing it.
This is an incredibly stellar image. You caught this squirrel in such a perfect position and in razor sharp focus. It is wonderful. Thank you so very much for posting it.
Hi J, I wasn’t sure that your suggestion would make much difference to Charles’ already-great image – but boy did you just teach me something! I hope I learn to see the subtle difference hue can make in my own work – thanks! – MET
