Although for years I had been photographing wildlife in many parts of the world, I had never, in fact, been able to successfully photograph one little chipmunk we call "Chester" who lives right in our own back yard. He was so shy that just clicking the patio door open would cause him to scurry back into the rocks in the the garden that is his home.
One day I got the bright idea that if I couldn't get close to him I'd get him to come close to me, or at least the camera. So I put a few peanuts on the patio and set the camera on a tripod, focused it on the peanuts and stayed inside the patio door and triggered the camera shots remotely from there whenever he came to retrieve one. I got my shots but they were all pretty much the same and, after a short while, pretty boring.
That's when the breakthrough came. I realized that<
a) In the workshop I could build any set of props I could dream up
b) all shots in any setup were the identical except for Chester, and
c) shots from any setup could be combined into Photoshop software to create pictures giving the impression of many chipmunks in one scene.
Over several weeks Chester became absolutely impressed with tiny smudges of peanut butter, little walnut and cashew chips and a pecan dangling on a thread at the end of a long pole. He became totally fearless, very comfortable in his roll as the "star" of the show and the best fed chipmunk on the planet.
Then add a little poetry and the end result is the book The Chipmunk Fall Fair.
One day I got the bright idea that if I couldn't get close to him I'd get him to come close to me, or at least the camera. So I put a few peanuts on the patio and set the camera on a tripod, focused it on the peanuts and stayed inside the patio door and triggered the camera shots remotely from there whenever he came to retrieve one. I got my shots but they were all pretty much the same and, after a short while, pretty boring.
That's when the breakthrough came. I realized that<
a) In the workshop I could build any set of props I could dream up
b) all shots in any setup were the identical except for Chester, and
c) shots from any setup could be combined into Photoshop software to create pictures giving the impression of many chipmunks in one scene.
Over several weeks Chester became absolutely impressed with tiny smudges of peanut butter, little walnut and cashew chips and a pecan dangling on a thread at the end of a long pole. He became totally fearless, very comfortable in his roll as the "star" of the show and the best fed chipmunk on the planet.
Then add a little poetry and the end result is the book The Chipmunk Fall Fair.