This year, many things are really different here in Germany. The weather changes very often and things usually turn out differently than planned: unfortunately, the conditions for heather photography have hardly been what I had hoped for - I need thick fog for that and it has not been there so far. But something else came around the corner instead: roe deer 🦒.
Basically, I plan to work on a series of pictures with mammals at least once a year in the future - in addition to my main focus on landscape and bird photography. As mentioned in my last series of pictures, a complete series on deer was actually planned for July, when the fawns are still a little smaller. I had already written off the series - but false alarm! In fact, a good opportunity arose that I would like to report on today 😀
Here in the western Germany I have noticed much better chances of success for deer photography in the mornings than in the evenings over the last few years. And since I wanted to block out the morning sessions for moorland photography, I assumed it was a done deal for this year.
But then I found a few meadows lined up close to me where this finally worked out well in the evenings. I can't say exactly what the reason is, but I have been there 11 times now and was able to observe deer at photographic distance shortly before sunset on all trips out of the car without exception.
For those interested in deer photography there are a few more details, everyone else can simply scroll down to the pictures⏬:
The photography usually started about 25 minutes before sunset and worked well until about 10 minutes after sunset. Of course, with today's technology it is possible much longer, but my highlight with the deer series is always the realisation in a, let's say "friendly evening summer atmosphere".
In meadows, I also like this time because of the soft light, which also allows for light colour tones in the background. In addition, the meadows then strongly lose their contrasts and dark, irregular areas are reduced in the picture. It's certainly an image style you don't have to like, but I feel this way 😀
Both of these things mean that the time in question is usually only about 30 minutes per sunset. Since I only go there for 12 minutes, I've only ever been out of the house for just under an hour for this photo session, but at a high frequency. So I always came home with 1-3 pictures per evening. This is actually untypical, in "normal" habitats I come away empty-handed on almost every second trip, because the deer only show themselves from too far away.
Once again all the pictures were taken from the car, because the animals accept this much more than a "stalking". I like this very much, because you are much more mobile than with a classic hide and you also have more variety in the habitat. For an impression of the meadows, here is a mobile phone shot above my bonnet...
The work on this series was unfortunately stopped again by the farmer's hay harvest, which took place last Sunday. The mown meadows no longer look really photogenic. A pity really, as I had only found out at the end of the series where I had chances to take pictures in the backlight. But well, hopefully next year June/July won't be so rainy again and then I'll devote myself to these meadows again - also has the advantage that the fawns will be a bit smaller then.
Finally, a technical side note: it was the first series I shot from the car with the Nikon Z8 - I'd been shooting a lot from the car with the Z9 for the last year and a half, but the combo of the Nikon Z600 with the Z8 was great in terms of handling in the car, constantly lifting back and forth between the window and the passenger seat. I also stopped using a bean bag altogether across the board and shot "handheld" from the car, as that gave me a bit more flexibility when the animals were moving. Now for handling in the car with a 600, the light weight, shorter dimensions and better image stabilisation were a boon compared to the 600's predecessors 👍
Next up is a trip to the north: starting next weekend, Christina and I will be doing a lot of hiking in Scandinavia, enjoying nature and landscape photography! I'm really looking forward to that now and won't be in touch again until middle of Oktober 🖐.
Until then, I wish you a lovely early autumn and lots of fun with the series,
Thomas
I hope you enjoyed the series 😀