This week’s challenge is to take a B&W or color portrait of an animal of whatever kind. Pet, domestic or wild animal, bird, reptile, fish or insect, it’s your choice. The only restriction is, the portrait should show the face or head (maximum with neck up the the shoulders or upper part of the body) only. Take care to focus on the eyes, select the right (neutral) background and suitable lighting. When taking photographs of an animal in an aquarium or terrarium you need to make sure not to get reflections in the glass which is not always so easy.

A Northern Caiman Lizard in a terrarium in the Haus des Meeres (House of the Seas) in Vienna:

I was at a local lake a few weeks ago to take photos of waterfowl and met a man there walking his dog. Although not a water bird I thought this cute fellow was worth to be photographed and took this portrait:

Some more example photos of different kind of animals:

Portrait of an insect:

Portrait of a pelican taken in the Zoo Schoenbrunn in Vienna (unfortunately we don’t have wild Pelicans in Austria):

Alpaca at a nearby farm:

I have always difficulties to take a portrait of a domestic cat (although you should think this is quite easy). Either the cat runs away or it comes too close to get a decent shot. In this case I was however successful:

This shot of a much larger cat had to be taken through a mash grid at a distance of about 5 meters, the distance from the camera to the meshgrid was about 1.5 or 2 meters.
I had to take care to shoot exactly through the middle of an opening of the grid. Focusing at the head of the lioness with aperture setting 8 of my 300 mm lens ensured to get the background blurry and to make the wires of the grid pracitically invisible.

An example of a fish in a large fishtank in the Haus des Meeres in Vienna. The difficulty in this case was firstly to tshoot at a suitable angle to the glass of the fishtank in order to avoid reflections, secondly not to get people at the other side of the fishtank on the photograph.

You may find further tips, examples and ideas for your image under following links:

https://www.google.com/search?q=animal+portraits+photography&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwiiodDJ1-P2AhVmZ_EDHcprAD8Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=animal+portraits+&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQARgAMgcIIxDvAxAnMgUIABCABDIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHjIECAAQHlCiEliiEmDkHmgAcAB4AIABXogBvAGSAQEymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=dfo-YuKSIebOxc8PyteB-AM&bih=947&biw=1920&client=firefox-b-d

https://www.pinterest.com/maxinjo2/animal-portrait-photography/

Challenge Summary

• Take a new portrait photo of an animal of your choice. The picture should should show the face or head (max. inlcuding th upper part of the bocy) only, not the entiry animal.
• Take care to focus on the eyes and select a neutral background.
• Post your newly taken photo during the week of Sunday, March 27 and Saturday, April 2.
• Please remember to comment on at least FIVE photo submissions this week by answering the question “why?” in your comments. In other words, “why do I like (or not like) this photo?” or “why did this photo catch my eye?” Thank you!

The friendly community guidelines are pretty simple

• Take a new photo for the current weekly theme, not something from your back catalog or someone else’s image.
• Post your photo each week to our active communities on Facebook or Flickr(or both). Tag the photo:  #2022photochallenge #photochallenge #tempusaura
• Don’t leave home without your camera. Participating in the 2022 Trevor Carpenter Photo Challenge is fun and easy.