Porcupine photo shoot

I met this traveler called Jens. He really inspired me a lot to uptake photography and the reason for that being is that he gave me the real experience in what effort goes into a perfect shot.

We waited til about 8 o'clock in the evening until we met in front of the bar and had a quick drink before the shoot was to take place. It was pitch dark. We chatted a bit about everything and when I saw he was almost finished with his drink I brought up the topic about the photo he wanted to take and what he wants me to do. As I am the guide of the farm it was necessary for me to go with him because he needed to go inside the enclosure and my job was to distract "Piet" , our porcupine, to right place and make sure that he is standing in the correct position so that the perfect shot can be made.

We headed of to old Piet's enclosure and as expected he was out of his hole and very active, after all they are nocturnal. Before entering he took of the covers from his cameras and mounted them on a tripod. I literally had to look twice to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me as he had the largest camera lens on this one camera. It looked as if he had a hand canon, ironically the camera make was also Canon. Upon entering Piet immediately noted me and I had all his attention, We struggled to get Piet alone in the shot because he followed to close to me. I then remembered we have a lot of left over Greek salad in the kitchen and I went to fetch it. The moment I got close enough to the cage I saw Jens running from the one side of the cage at top speed to the other, turned around and pointed the camera in the direction of Piet and of when the bizarre clicking sound of his camera taking what sounds like a hundred photos at a time. He repeated the process like three times before I broke out and laughed, describing it words does not sound as funny as the real sighting would be, 

I strategically placed the food in the enclosure and Piet immediately started eating, Jens' wife who places probably the most important role in the photo shoot shined the light in many different ways on the animal. later she used two flash lights. 

When the food was finished I was the one who had to run down the cage so that we could get in some more shots and we ended it of with trying to get a nice shot of his face.

I think he must have taken about 500 or more photos of the animal, and he told me the reason to that is, that you can not rely on one or two shots for the perfect shot. We exchanged emails and once he gets time he will mail me the photo we tried to create.

The silhouette of a porcupine was the idea and I myself have seen what a difficult task it is to take such a magnificent photo.

What inspired me the most was not his amazing camera but through what ends he would go for the perfect shot, I am telling you now, I have learned something new that night without a doubt.

Photo credits: Jens Cullmann
                       www.jenscullmann.de