Plans for shoot:
In this shoot I will focus on capturing images of some of the extraordinary sensory experiences involving smell, taste and touch. This is a particularly exciting shoot for me as it will involve working with a number of different animals, which I will love to do. However it may prove challenging as from previous experience I know that it is difficult to position them as you would like in the frame as they do not take direction like a human model.
I animals I intend to capture images of are dogs, cats, geckos and snakes. Fortunately I have a number of pets that I can use as models; these are dogs and a gecko. However I do not have pet snakes so I have arranged with a friend who has four snakes and a cat to do the photo shoot at her house as this will be less stressful for them.
I have arranged for an assistant to be present for the shoot to help with trying to get the dogs to pose in the positions I want as well as to get them looking towards the camera. This will be done by holding dog treats near the lens.
The equipment I plan on using is a normal and a macro lens and a small light box. I will also have dog treats and a spray bottle to moisten the gecko with to encourage him to lick his eye, as well as some snake food to encourage them to taste the air with their tongue.
The techniques I will use will be macro close up using the light box for the gecko and the snakes and wide angle close up for the dogs.
Research influence
Elke Vogelsang is a photographer who specializes in dog portraiture and has taken fascinating images of her own three rescue dogs. She takes them in her studio from unusual perspective very close up to the subject using a wide angle lens. This gives the image an extreme rendition of perspective as the foreground gets bigger and the background gets smaller. This creates the appearance of distorting the dog’s features way out of proportion to the rest of its body and making it much bigger than what you would expect. The images produced are extremely dramatic, as well as being warm, intimate and captivatingly entertaining. But what I really interests me is that I can also use this way of composing my images to use in my project to convey having an extreme sensory smelling ability. As is shown in the image below the unusual perspective exaggerates the size of the dog’s nose, and makes it the dominant focus of the image. Taking the image this way highlights the function of a dog’s nose which has an extraordinary sense of smell. Compared to a human’s olfactory ability a dog’s is 10,000 times better and they can detect chemicals diluted to 1 or 2 parts per trillion. The size also parallels the importance of scent to a dog in revealing and experiencing the world around. I have three dogs of my own and will take similar images to Vogelsang’s to highlight their extreme smelling ability.
Ross McGibbon is a wildlife photographer who captures images of snakes and other reptiles that live in their natural habitat. In the photo below he has captured an image of a Golden Tree Snake, which is non venomous, and it is flicking out its tongue into the air. It is doing this to pick up chemical particles present in the air or the ground which it will deposit into its Jacobs Organ, which is in the roof of their mouth, to be analysed. Snakes tongues do not have any receptors to detect taste or smell but the fork in it allows them to collect information from two different areas at the one time. From analysing this they can form a gradient of the scents/particles which helps them determine the direction it is coming from. This feature lets them smell by tasting the air with their tongue and they can do this in 3Dimension which allows them to follow prey or to find mates.
I love the beautiful quality and detail McGibbon has captured in the image, you can see the individual scales and the texture of its skin looks smooth and silky. He has also used a narrow depth of field to focus attention onto the head of the snake and blur the rest of its long body and the background. This makes the viewer focus in detail on the snake’s head and its forked tongue dominates this image. The image captures and reveals how snakes taste air, and it is probably the close by photographer that he smells /tastes in this image. Often because snakes eyes are so fascinating and beautiful to look at, it takes attention away from how they are really sensing their world. Snakes have quite poor eyesight and it is their extraordinary sense of smell that they rely on.
I really love these images and how they convey the way snakes smell by tasting the air. I have a friend who has a number of snakes including a ball python and she has agreed that I can photograph them and hopefully I can capture a tongue flick. I think this will provide a fantastic visual image that conveys the snakes extreme ability to experience the smells and tastes in its world.
Other photographers who have captures imaged of reptiles in their natural habitat are Clay Bolt and Muhammad Roem they have used a wide angle close up technique so that this extends the depth of field in their landscapes. This allows the viewer to place the animals in its environment and get a more personal understand of what it sees and feels and the relationship of its size to its environment. The technique of wide angle close up is one that I definitely intend to use in my project.
Contact sheet
Straight Images
I captured images of my pet gecko as he climbed about his vivarium, I wanted to show how he used the large wide toes on his feet and his prehensile tail to grasp and hold onto objects as he travelled about his woodland environment.
Gecko’s have large beautiful circular eyes and have phenomenal eyesight and to keep them clean and moisturised they lick over them with their long tongues. This is because they do not have eyelids so cannot blink or ever close their eyes. I managed to capture this using a macro lens and my lighting in my light box.
Geckos have large splayed toes on their feet which are covered in tiny hairs. These hairs help allow them to climb vertical surfaces by ‘sticking’ to them. I wanted to capture this extreme form of touch.
I tried to capture the geckos eye lick from a different perspective, from the side rather than the front, but he was not being cooperative.
I have captured an image of Puzzle the cat taken from the front which highlights how many and how long her whiskers are. Only the whiskers on the left of the frame are visible and this dissymmetry draws attention to them. Cats use these to sense what is around them.
I then photographed a cat with more symmetrically obvious whiskers.
I tried many times to capture an image of my dog Hades nose in a wide angle close up image like Elsie Voselsang’s images. But he was too excited and kept moving about as soon as the camera went near his nose. This meant that many of the images were blurred as it was difficult to maintain focus on a moving nose. I tried another of my dogs, Oscar, as a model he was too hot and kept panting.
My Best images
Images that require improvement
Geckos have a prehensile tail that they use like an additional limb to grasp and hold onto objects like branches to provide them with stability and balance. They rely on them to prevent them falling off vertical surfaces, and also to manoeuvre in the air and ensure they land on their feet if they fall. Their tails are therefore important for them to escape from predators and to hunt for prey. This image shows my pet gecko as he climbs over branches and small logs in his vivarium. The obvious problem I have with it is that it is difficult for viewers to determine that it is a geckos tail that they are viewing, as it is probably something they are not familiar with seeing. I took the image when I was trying to get a close up of his feet so my camera setting were arranged for this and this was why I did not capture the entire length of his body in the frame. I will therefore need to retake the image to include a large part of his body within the frame while he is using his tail to touch and wrap around an object for stability. This will take patience as geckos can be fast moving, can jump suddenly and quickly and like to hide themselves within the cover of the leaves of branches. This makes it difficult to get the shot you would like. It is continues to elude me I can take an image with me holding him with one hand and with his tail wrapped around my wrist, although this would not be very natural it would illustrate the experience of his using touch to hold onto me and achieve stability and balance.
Capturing an image of a snake's tongue flick using a narrow depth of field is quite difficult to do and during the shoot I took hundreds of images trying to get the perfect image. The problem was that snakes move constantly and their tongue flicks are so quick that you have to anticipate it happening as if you wait until you see it you will have missed it. The above image is one of many I took where I captured the tongue flick but as the hognose snake was slithering along the floor at the same time then the camera was sharply in focus on the region behind his head, rather than on his tongue. This image was particularly good as it has two snakes a male and a female in it and shows one, the male tasting the scent of the other who is behind him. It was unfortunate that the tongue was blurred in this image but in other images I managed to capture sharply in focus tongue flicks.
AO3: Record ideas, observations and insights relevant to intentions, reflecting critically on work and progress.
My aim in this shoot is to capture images of some of the extraordinary sensory experiences involving smell, taste and touch that animals have. They have acquired these through evolution and natural selection as they give the animal a competitive advantage to survive and have offspring and so pass on the sensory advantage to their young.
While this shoot will be fun to do it will also be more difficult to get the exact composition I want as I know that working with animals can be difficult. They do not take direction as human models would and often they get excited so will not stay in the same position for any length of time. This makes it difficult to position them to get the best lighting, angle, or pose for a particular shot. However, with time and patience I hope to get as close as possible to my planned compositions.
My intention is to focus on several specific sensory experiences relating to smell, taste and touch. After some additional research around my current understanding I have chosen to focus on four animals with their extraordinary ability to have extreme and even bizarre sensory experiences when compared to others. The ones I have chosen are:
1) Dogs sense of smell: dogs have a very sensitive sense of smell, which is about 10,000 times better than humans. They can detect chemicals diluted to 1 or 2 parts per trillion using their 250 million smell receptors, compared with our 5 million. They also have two different air passages, one for breathing and one for smelling, and their nostrils can smell independently to help them determine the direction of where scents come from. Dogs interpret their world through their nose, and I will capture images using an unusual perspective, that will distort the size of its nose in comparison to the rest of its body. This idea was based on Elke Vogelsang's conceptual idea as described in the research section. By making the dogs nose so out of proportion to the rest of its face and body this will focus attention on it and its function. Viewers will visually see the significance of a dogs ability to understand their environment through smell as the size of their nose will visually parallel this.
2) Cat whiskers - Cats have extremely sensitive tactile hairs called whiskers that play an important role in how they sense their environment. They have long whiskers on either side of their nose and shorter whiskers above their eyes, on their jaw and forelegs. The whiskers act as touch receptors that connect to motion sensors in the hair follicles. They allow the cat to determine the exact location, texture and size of objects they contact and are so sensitive they can even detect changes in air currents and warn them of approaching danger. They can also help the cat gauge whether it can fit into a tight space as the lengths of the whiskers are about the width of the cat. Finally being long sighted they rely on their whiskers to help them determine the exact positioning of prey when it is up close. To convey visually the way whiskers function as a sensory organ in revealing aspects of its environment to a cat I will take close up images of a cats face in which the whiskers stand out very prominently. By having the lines of the thick whiskers hairs in front of the cat’s face it will be clear to see how they can act as a touch sensor for objects that come near it and also as a detector for changes in wind speed and direction. I can enhance this by having something brushing up against or close to some of the whiskers.
3) Geckos – it is important for geckos to keep their eyes healthy and clean as they depend on the sensory information they obtain from them. The way they keep them clean is to lick their eyeball with their long tongue. This is because they have no eyelids so cannot blink or ever close their eyes. I will use my macro lens and try to capture images of the gecko as it wipes its tongue over its eye. The experience of seeing an animal licking its eyeball is rather bizarre and makes me think about the sensation of how this would feel and taste. I expect that viewers will not have seen this before so it will make an unusual and captivating image. As the tongue lick is so unexpected it will immediately focus attention on the experience of what this would feel like.
4) Snakes have the ability to taste/smell in 3D- the forked tongue of a snake, though lacking any taste/smell receptors, can pick up chemicals in the air and deposit them into a sensory organ in the roof of their mouth. The fork in their tongue allows them to detect information from two different areas at one time. From this, they can form a gradient of the smell to determine its direction so allowing them to smell in 3 Dimensions. I will illustrate this sensory experience by capturing an image of the snake as it flicks its forked tongue out and tastes the smells in the air. By visually capturing the two distinct forks in the snake's tongue and the distance between them and then focusing the image on the snake as it tastes chemicals in the air I will illustrate the sensory experience it is having.
5) Geckos splayed feet – geckos have the ability to run up vertical walls and across ceilings. This is due to the structure of their feet and the millions of tiny hair like bristles that are present on the pads. These hairs make close contact with surfaces creating van der Waals forces that though weak individually when added together create a strong adhesive force. I will capture images of a gecko’s feet and so highlight their tactile quality with tiny hairs covering them that when their toes are splayed out cover a large surface area and enables them to stick to, run up or hang from most surfaces.
On this image of Puzzle the cat her whiskers can be clearly seen on the left side of the frame. But not so much on the right as her fur is high-lit and whiter there. This lack of symmetry in the image is rather eye catching and makes the image a bit strange as you expect her whiskers to look the same on both sides. Attention is therefore drawn to the cat's whiskers as you realise that something is just not quite right in the image and your mind starts to look to find out what it is. I have also found another different cat to use as a model which has more symmetrical looking whiskers that stand out more against its darker colouring. I used a narrow depth of field in this image to blur the cat's body and just keep the plane its face occupies in sharp focus. I think this image is better as the cat looks more alert as can be seen by its eyes being focused on the camera and also its whiskers are more forward facing as if preparing to provide the cat with sensory information. This could be warning her of the approach of other animals or objects close to her as she would feel the vibrations of the air particles through the receptors in her whiskers. So by having such a close-up image of the cat’s whiskers, this highlights their importance in how they experience the world, as the whiskers can be visually seen to provide a barrier right in front of the cats face through which sensation must get through. To improve the impact of this images I am looking to identify other animals that have even more whiskers on their face as this will highlight and emphasise the sensory experience that can be obtained from their function as touch receptors.
This image was taken with a macro lens with the gecko placed in a light box and facing towards the camera. The light-box ensured the quality of light was sufficient to achieve good detail in the image and for it to be soft enough to make the gecko look real and three dimensional. I have used a narrow depth of field to focus attention on the geckos head and there are tiny droplets of water on him from the water I sprayed to prevent him dehydrating and to encourage him to lick his eye. I captured several image using a burst, which have captured him slowly in stages sticking his tongue out of his mouth and it working its way up and over his upper lip to eventually wipe completely over his eye. The moist texture of the tongue is clearly visible in the image and I find it rather strange to see an animal lick its eyeball. We blink to keep our eyes clean but as geckos have no eyelids this is not possible for them. Looking at this image is therefore as close as I will get to this sensory experience and I think I would not like the taste of my eyeball anyway. When other viewers look at this image I hope they too will find it captivating and make them think of the different often unusual ways animals can use their tongues. To improve this image I could crop it and so fill the frame more with the gecko and less of the background. In this way the experience would be more intense and also the tongue would be bigger and so let the viewer see the detail more clearly.
AO2: Explore and select appropriate resources, media, materials, techniques and processes, reviewing and refining ideas as work develops.
In this shoot I used a number of different animals, dogs, cats, geckos and four different snakes as models in my shoots. These animals were selected based on my research around how extraordinary their senses are. I was selecting for abilities that I would be able to illustrate visually and also where I could access the particular animals in order to photograph them in a shoot. I have outlined my insight into the particular extreme senses they have in AO3 above, but summarise them as: snakes ability to smell in 3D, cat’s sensitive whiskers, and gecko’s ability to walk up vertical surfaces and to wash their own eyes with their tongue and dogs highly sensitive smelling ability.
The techniques I have used are:
Macro lens close up- to achieve detail that is not that obvious to the naked eye, geckos splayed feet, snakes forked tongue, geckos tongue wiping eyes
Wide angle close up – to distort the perspective and enlarge part of the subjects features (dogs nose)
Narrow Depth of field – to focus attention on a particular part of the field and remove distraction by blurring other parts
Freeze frame – to capture the snakes tongue flick and the geckos eye lick
Use of a light box – used to improve the available light and achieve better realistic quality in the images as well as control the light/shadow transition by making use of reflective surfaces to light shadowed areas. This is illustrated in the diagram below.
The props I have used are the gecko vivarium and its contents (branches, logs, soil, leaves). Also some dog treats which an assistant used to attract the dogs attention towards the camera. As well as a spray bottle of water to encourage the gecko to lick his eye. I also had some snake food to take with me to encourage them to tongue flick and smell/taste the food in the air.
I use several locations firstly the snake owner’s home, my home and the vivarium which is set up to resemble a tropical woodland scene. The image of Puzzle the cat was taken at an animals rescue centre Mutts in Distress in Little Hallingbury. I then used another cat as a model to improve and refine the image.
I spent a long time capturing the images of the snakes tongue flicks and took many hundreds of images in bursts as I hoped for their tongues to appear during the bursts. The snakes also moved quickly so this made it even harder to set focus of the depth of field on the correct spot. It was important to me to have such a narrow depth of field focused around its tongue, so that the viewers attention would be directed there. I could have used a wider depth of field and obtained the images much more easily but they would not have been so impactful and the message being sent to the viewer to focus their thoughts on the sensory experience the snake is displaying would have been reduced.
AO1: Develop ideas through sustained and focused investigations informed by contextual and other sources, demonstrating analytical and critical understanding.
Through my research investigations, I have found a number of photographer’s work that has inspired me for this shoot. This is both through the techniques that they use and also the conceptual approaches they have taken. For this shoot, the main photographers were Elke Voselsang and Ross McGibbon.
As soon as I saw Voselsang’s images this immediately connected with how I could visually convey to the viewers the importance of a dog’s sense of smell in revealing its environment to it. The approach she uses in her images using the strange perspective and the way it massively enhances foreground objects and makes the dogs nose a large focal point. In this way the noses size parallels its importance in providing the sensory information a dog receives.
The images below are wide angle close ups that I have taken of my dog Hades nose. I captured many images and these were my best attempts, as often the images were out of focus or his nose was out of shot. This was due to the constant movement of Hades as I put the camera near his nose, as he was not very comfortable with this.
In the first image Hades is sitting and looking up towards the camera and in the second he is lying down on the bed and looking down towards the camera. By using the technique of wide angle close up in taking these images I have created an extreme rendition of perspective due to the camera being very close to the dog’s nose. In the image the foreground gets bigger and the background gets smaller and this extends the depth of field making the image look distorted. But it creates such a dramatic image that really emphasizes the dog’s nose and makes the image entertaining and captivating. The nose appears massive compared to what it should be and this highlights the important role this sensory organ plays in allowing a dog to experience its environment. You can just imagine the information the dog obtains from breathing in through such a massive nose. I can almost see chemical particles in the air being sucked up and disappearing into the large nostrils in a powerful suction action with each breath in. I also like the way the image has captures the moist patterned appearance of his nose, as having a wet nose enables the dog to trap scents more easily. By capturing this wet and patterned texture in the image this further focuses attention on the dog's nose.
As Hades did not like the camera being close to his nose and would immediately move away I tried to use another of my dogs, Oscar, as a model, but he was even more fidgety. The difficulty in obtaining good quality images has really enhanced my respect for Elke Voselsang and her ability to get her dogs to pose for her; this must have required a lot of patience and a lot of practice.
To improve this image I would like Hades mouth to be shut as this serves as a distraction away from his nose. His mouth is open as he was panting because he was warm and trying to cool down. Next time I take the image I will cool the room down so that he does not warm up so quickly and will be less likely to pant. I would also prefer the light source to be more from the side so that I can capture more detail of the texture of the dog’s nose and its form. I would also like to crop the image to make Hades more central in it. As he moved around so much this would have been difficult to do while taking the image.
The second main photographer whose work I took inspiration from was Ross McGibbon. He is an Australian wildlife photographer who has taken many close-up macro images of snakes in their natural habitat. His images capture the wonderful details of the snake’s patterned scaled skin and their unusual eyes but importantly for this shoot he also captured images of a snake’s tongue flick. This is how a snake collects chemicals in the air and on the ground. It flicks its tongue up or down (or both) then deposits any collected chemical particles into a compartment in its mouth for analysis. Each fork has a separate deposit compartment and so the snake can determine gradients of where scents came from and so follow the trails of prey or potential mates. Snakes tongue flicks occur very quickly so the details would not be that obvious to the naked eye, but by using a close up macro image and freeze frame I can capture the snakes forked tongue in action, as McGibbon has done many times. The freeze frame of a snake with its forked tongue frozen in the air as it tastes the smells present in two separate places will make a captivating image that conveys the extreme sensory experience taking place.
This image is of a female hog nose snake that is in the process of flicking its tongue out to taste the air to determine what other creatures are close by before it decides to emerge from its position of safety in the hide. While the entrance to the hide serves as a frame for the snake and focuses attention on it, the darkness of the cave means that the snake's black tongue is not that obvious as it could be. Using a snake with a different colour of tongue would have worked better in this image. But I do think having the hide draws attention to the function of the flick as it suggests the snake is testing for something before emerging from its little cave.
These are images of a male ball python that has just started to flick its tongue out so the two forks at the end of it is really apparent against the light background. I used a narrow depth of field in this image to focus attention around the position of the tongue keeping this in sharp focus and blurring the rest of the snakes body. In this way the region around the front of the snakes head and mouth draws all the viewers attention. The wide distance between the ends of the two forks can be clearly seen in this image, particularly when compared to the one taken a moment earlier when its forks were together. This images illustrates how snakes smell in 3 dimensions, as they can taste/smell independently with each fork and so can determine the gradient of the chemical particles and so the direction of the trail.
To capture these images I had to take bursts of images and just hope the snake would flick their tongue. As if I waited until I saw them start to flick and then press the shutter I would completely miss it as the flick is so fast. This meant that I had hundreds and hundreds of image to look through afterwards to find the ones with the tongue flicks. But this was worth it as I got some amazing images.
This is the same snake from the hide image, a female hog-nose. In this image she is tasting the ground scents as can be seen from the low position of her tongue. The image also captures how long her tongue is compared to her head. I have again used a narrow depth of field to focus attention on her tongue.
AO4: Present a personal and meaningful response that realises intentions and, where appropriate, makes connections between visual and other elements.
My intention in this shoot was to focus on extraordinary sensory experiences involving smell, taste and touch. I have used my own knowledge and have researched in detail a number of more extreme sensory abilities that some animals have. From these I have selected 5 that I can convey visually and that it is possible for me to access the animals for a photo shoot. I have tried to select a variety of sensory experiences some of which are well known such as a dogs fantastic ability to sense smells and the way a cat uses its whiskers. I have also chosen more diverse less well known sensory experiences such as a snake’s ability to taste and smell the air in 3D with its tongue and a gecko’s ability to climb vertically using its ‘sticky’ feet. I believe by choosing less well known abilities this will create interest and intrigue in the viewers making them look more carefully at the images and the sensory experiences they show.
I have tried to connect the sensory experience to the sense involved by focusing closely on the organ involved in detail or while it is in action. For example:
A snakes forked tongue being caught in freeze frame
A gecko’s large splayed out feet captured with a macro lens
A geckos tongue being caught wiping its eye
I have exaggerated the size of a dog’s nose to emphasise its powerful smelling ability like a huge hoover.
I have chosen a cat with clearly defined whiskers that I have captured close up images of to highlight how the whiskers fan out around their face and so are use them to sense the movement of particles/objects bumping against them.
This image captures the gecko wandering and climbing through his vivarium where he lives. It has been set up to resemble a tropical rainforest with moist soil, branches, logs, rocks, a waterfall (not in view) and foliage. This helps the viewer imagine the gecko in his natural environment so that when they see the images of him clinging onto a vertical surface they can better picture him running up the trunks of trees etc in a natural environment. In the image he is using his left foreleg and rear hind leg to manoeuvre himself over the log. The way his toes splay out visually highlights their tactile quality and how this allows him to stick to surfaces.
This is a macro image I have taken of my gecko’s front foot and I have used close cropping and a narrow depth of field to focus attention on it by keeping it in sharp focus and blurring other parts of the field. On the foot there are five toes and each has a small claw at the end. Each toe is bulbous and wide allowing the gecko to have a large surface area in contact with objects to help it ‘stick’ to them. It is their feet that enable them to have superhuman abilities like running up walls and even hanging from the ceilings. The ‘stickiness’ comes from the hundreds of tiny microscopic hairs, called setae, which cover the base of the toes and then which each of these splits into even smaller spatula shaped bristles called spatulae. These tiny hairs contact the surface so closely that van der Waals are formed and as there are so many interactions this adds up to a strong attraction. Also the setae are very flexible and by adjusting the angle and force of contact with the surface a gecko can stick and release itself very quickly allowing it to run along a vertical surface, turn quickly to escape a predator or jump through the air and land safely.
I have taken images of the gecko’s foot and the striated pattern of rows and rows of bristles can be seen at the edge of the toes and it is this tactile surface that allows it to behave like Spiderman. The large surface area the foot contacts the surface with can be seen, and compared with its size this is large and allows the setae in the foot to make enough contacts with the surface to easily support its weight.
In my next shoot I will be capturing images relating to extreme sensory experiences involving sight and hearing. I will be taking further images of snakes but this time focusing on the pit organs on their faces which detect infrared heat and which allows them to detect warm animals even in complete darkness. I will also be taking images of dog’s ears using a similar idea to that used by Elke Voselsang. I will also be trying using a new technique that I have been studying, that of using infrared photography. I have ordered a filter for my camera to enable me to take landscape images in this way. This will be to illustrate the visual sensory experience geckos have, as they have exceptional sight and can see in infrared.
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