We have a ton of frogs for the studio work today, and I am so exhausted from the night before. I spent all day photographing the frogs, it’s helpful when there is enough to focus a whole day on the studio work, I noticed that with the fish too. You can get into a good rhythm, plus the rechargeable batteries work better right after a charge so that helps too.
I’ve noticed the personalities of the animals matter a lot with the studio work. Some frogs go nuts, some are calm, and some get aggressive. There’s one type of frog that decides to go after you when your photographing it. I noticed in the forest, it was the one species that instead of running, it turned around and started moving towards me, it did the same in the studio; rather ballsy for a little guy.
The two stars are the turtle frog and a red toed frog that makes me think of red lipstick for some reason. The turtle frog is funny, he started to burrow into my hand as soon as I grabbed him. Not to mention how funny he looks!
The bouncy frogs are the hardest, as soon as you let them out of your hand they start jumping around. I added black velvet to a cardboard box that I duct taped up to contain the frogs when I photographed them, and it helped a lot, otherwise they would immediately hop away. Thanks to Joel Sartore for that one, I learned it from watching him.