14.09.11
British Wildlife: how to recreate and photograph pond life
In the latest instalment of our ongoing Wild Britain series looking at forgotten British wildlife, photographer Paul Hobson explains how to quickly and cheaply recreate a pond habitat in your garden and photograph an amazing array of creatures
Pond dipping. To spend time with a net and jam jar beside a small pond and marvel at the myriad tiny, amazing creatures swirling around in front of our curious eyes is something we all probably did in our youth.
As wildlife photographers we pursue with enthusiasm birds, butterflies and dragonflies, yet when was the last time you saw a body of work or a competition entry about the life of pond dwellers?
Dragonflies have become one of the most popular wildlife subjects in the last 10 years; though we oddly only concentrate on the comparatively short lifetime of the adult. How many of us have looked for the other, much longer phase of its life as a larva in the pond?
The main reason why life under the duckweed has been ignored by so many wildlife photographers is because it’s in water. And water, we all know, is of course wet and difficult to get your camera into. What’s more, pond water is muddy and opaque. But never fear; it is possible to photograph this stunning group of animals rather easily, but you do need to spend a little preparation time.
Building your aquarium
I do all my pond life photography in purpose-built, mini aquariums. These are easy and fairly cheap to build. For most of my work I use an aquarium with a front that 20cm long by 10cm high. The back is the same height but a little longer (30cm) so the sides are at an angle running away from the front. I do this so that the back corners of the tank aren’t as visible in your frame as much as they are in a standard square/rectanglar aquarium. The sides are 10cm high by 11cm wide.
You now need a base. I have this a bit bigger than it needs to be to make the assembly a little easier. I find it useful if you draw this out on paper when you go to the glass cutter.
To seal the aquarium I use aquarium clear silicon sealant. Don’t use anything from a DIY store unless its pure silicon because they often have an anti-mould chemical added.
Once you get the hang of making these it’s really easy to build other variations such as shallow square ones to photograph looking straight up through the bottom. In all my aquariums I use the thinnest picture glass for the front, back and sides but thicker glass for the base. If you decide to build larger versions you may need to use thicker glass.
Using the aquarium
The first thing is to get the aquarium spotlessly clean, particularly the front and back. Fill it carefully with rain water that has been left to stand for a day so any sediment should settle out.
Fill another clean container with rain water and wash any props thoroughly in this, especially weed. You may need to repeat this step a few times. Put the washed props in the tank and refill the container with clean water.
Collecting pond dwellers
The first step before you even set foot on the pond’s bank is to be prepared at home. Get a series of containers of a good size - e.g. old aquariums or big plastic tubs - and have them all cleaned. Set up a water butt to collect rainwater because this is will be the water you are going to use later.
Do not use tap water because it contains chlorine. If you can’t get access to clean rainwater and you have to use tap water, let it stand for 48 hours to let the chlorine dissipate.
On the collection day use your net to sweep gently through the pond water. The depth at which you sweep will partly determine what you catch. You do need to be careful, though; its not good practice to leave the pond looking like someone has been dynamite fishing so be careful when sweeping through weeds.
Pop the catch after each sweep into a large plastic tray with pond water in it. You can now see what you have caught and use a spoon to transfer anything that looks interesting into one of your collecting containers filled with pond water. Remember to keep these out of the sun or they will overheat quickly.
At home transfer the catch to one of the larger containers, adding the pond water to the rain water. Don’t forget to add some weed for shelter. Make sure you also leave all the water and creatures outside so they are all at the same temperature and won’t get shocked when you move them.
It’s important that once you have finished your photography you should return all the animals to the pond where you caught them. I would suggest you only keep any animals for a couple of days. Many are carnivores and will eat each other, so make sure you know what they are and keep them separate from each other.
If you keep the animals longer you must find out what they eat so you can feed them. If you keep carnivorous species like dragonfly larvae or many water beetles, then small earthworms are a good food source.
Key camera settings
I photograph using my macro lens and occasionally an extension tube as well to get a little closer. I always use a tripod because even in good light the speeds are never high.
Macro work has a shallow depth of field so you may use higher F numbers like 16. This, however, will build in one problem - a bigger depth of field with more particles present in the water showing up. I can never get rid of them all no matter how hard I try and as the animals swim about they keep stirring up any sediment.
Try different apertures. I find f/8 a good compromise but even then I need to spend a little time on the computer removing the specks in the water from my images.
I used to use flash but this makes the specks stand out even more; all the images in this article were taken in natural daylight. Light overcast days are ideal.
I set my white balance to cloudy to add a little more saturation and tend to use an ISO of about 800, even pushing it to ISO 1000 occasionally.
Choosing a background
The background is very important. I simply place a sheet or some vegetation of the colour I want a metre or so behind the aquarium.
Through a process of trial and error I have found that lighter colours, particularly greens, work best because the white specks in the water tend to show up much less.
To read the rest of Paul's tips and see more of his stunning images, pick up the October issue of Photography Monthly, currently on newsstands.
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