Behind the Scenes

Here is an image of a DouglasTree Squirrel that I created this morning. Those of you that have followed my blog for any length of time know that I love photographing small mammals. So what's behind the image? Didn't you just go out and find a squirrel and photograph it? What did it take to make this image?

Surprisingly there is a lot that had to happen before I could push the shutter button to take the picture. The first thing was that I created an environment over the years around my house with bird and squirrel feeders that was squirrel friendly. Next I found an old downed snag (rotting tree) and from it I made a knothole feeder for the squirrels to use. It's basically a thin piece of the tree with a knothole in it. I attached a coffee can full of sunflower seed to the back side of it. After putting up the feeder I had to wait a few days for the squirrels to start using it. I built a photography blind (you can also buy one) and set up my camera in the blind and prefocused on the knothole on the feeder. The next part was the easiest. I sat in the blind and waited an hour and a half for the squirrel to come use the feeder. All in all I made about seventy images of the squirrel going in and out of the feeder. After edtiting I came up with six that were what I call keepers. I selected this one as my favorite as it portrays the personality of a Douglas Tree Squirrel the best.Now you know probably more than you needed to know what was behind the image. A coffee can right?

God's precious love to all,

chris