There’s an old adage in wildlife photography that still applies. When there is nothing else for a background, throw something green behind the subject. Why Green? Well, referring to my own Psychology of Color, you find that green, “is the most restful color for the human eye. It’s the universal color of nature as well as represents fertility, rebirth and freedom.” The background is so important, in content and color when we want to tell our subject’s story. As with this Golden-naped Woodpecker from Costa Rica’s rainforest, that green not only talks about where the woodpecker lives, but makes its golden nap, pop!
Here’s the same subject with a different background color to illustrate my point. By switching from green to yellow, look at the impact it has on making the woodpecker (the male, the red top notch) visually pop as well as the overall feeling of the photograph. The manipulation of the background was done by shooting with the D4s / 800mm (w/TC-1.25) and physically moving the whole rig just two inches to the left. The primary reason I shoot with the 800mm is the total control of the background with ever so slight a physical movement. When working with wildlife, you don’t want to have to make big physicl moves. It tends to scare them off. Now to get the bigger images size in the vertical shot, I simply was closer, physically.
So you can get a sense of how the photo came to be, it was really rather simple. We had stopped on the road to photograph eventually the White-necked Puffbird (a rather rare bird). We stopped for one species and while walking toward the Puffbird, I saw the Golden-naped Woodpecker. With a couple of other shooters, I got as close physically as I could and started to shoot (the vertical). Since the woodpeckers were on the road and the female was on the same trunk, pretty safe bet the male wasn’t going anywhere. So with those close up shots in the can, I physically moved back and over. Why? Two things. Image size is not a priority in my photography and, I want to tell a story. By moving back and going horizontal, you now see more of the tree and that tells you the species of tree and its location on the globe (if you’re into trees). More importantly, I’m telling you in the frame the woodpecker is smaller rather than a larger species. Yep, all of that goes through my mind when looking through the viewfinder which permits me to compose all the elements in the viewfinder rather in post, later. Just remember, when there is nothing else …