Down Low

I'm still wading through editing my images from last week. It's hard to do when there is so much to photograph in the spring time. Here is a close up portrait of a California Ground Squirrel. Those of you that have been following this photoblog for a long time you know I'm a sucker for photographing small mammals. I spotted this squirrel last week near the trail head to Seal Point at McKerricher State Park. It froze when I first spotted it. Maybe the squirrel thought if I don't move he won't see me. I walked as close as I could to it before I could sense it was ready to bolt into a nearby burrow. Then I slowly lowered my self to a prone position on the ground and I inched forward a little more. Small subjects (children included) lend themselves to be photographed on their level. It creates more of an intimate sense when you are down low at their height. For ground squirrels that means being right at ground level. I really like how the image worked out. God's love and blessings to all, chris This image was created with a handheld Canon 7D and a Tamron 150-600mm lens at 600mm. Camera settings used were AV mode, ISO 200 (it was close to midday) F 8.0 at 1/320th of a sec. Fill flash of minus 2-1/3 with a Canon 550 EX was used.