The first time I went to Endicott Park in Danvers MA I felt out of my element. Coming from New York City we have *nothing like this…
You see, I’m used to the concrete jungle. Parks where there’s no grass and shattered glass on the floor, and crazy people all around. At Endicott Park there’s actual real wildlife. There’s goats, rabbits, ducks, pigs, cows, chickens, ducks, horses – and more!
There’s even nicely kept grass…
I recently moved to Peabody – which is 20 minutes (without traffic) from Boston. I’m always on the lookout for dog friendly places to take my dogs which is how I found out about Endicott Park.
My wife took a day off – which meant I can take pictures of the three of them!
Which also meant I had a helper to shoot Gizmo & Chooky as taking pictures of them is at minimum a 2 man job.
Now when it comes to taking pictures (especially with pets and people) be sure to take a lot of pictures; as there are subtle differences between each shot taken consecutively.
Plus while you’re at it be sure to shoot images in portrait and horizontal orientation. *Check out this series of images to see what I’m talking about.*
It took me over 20 pictures to get this 1 money shot.
Here’s the sequence of images that it took to get me here:
On to the next spot…
Gizmo & Chooky are also city slickers…
If Gizmo sees a four legs and an ass – he has to take a sniff…
Uhhh, nope!
The key to taking better pictures of pets and children is to get as low as you can to their level. This image is more of a snapshot that anyone can take.
But check out how much more dynamic getting low is:
Cameras have a harder time picking up focus with subjects that are coming straight to the camera.
For better and more results try to shoot your subjects from the side:
During our 1 hour trip there I probably took over 400 images. Here are some of my favorites:
Before we left I wanted to get another decent shot of my wife and doggies. But it didn’t work out…
This is the final image before we gave up (I wish she would have had a better smile as she’s the one that ruined this shot, LOL…
I know it’s hard to see on a tiny mobile device – but I also got a chance to see some blue birds. They moved before I can get a good shot and if you think children and dogs are hard to shoot – try shooting birds!
Before we went home I saw one more photo opportunity. Luckily there were no other people or dogs around because Gizmo would have definitely ran away!
On a final note, for those wondering I used a Canon 5d Mark iii with a 70-200mm f2.8 lens. It looks something like this:
That’s all folks. I hope you enjoyed this post and learned a thing or two!
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