How the squirrel ninja got made!

Disclaimer: "No animals were harmed during shooting, but got seriously chopped up in photoshop".

This project involved:

• about a dozen squirrels
• some bags of exotic peanuts
• many hours chasing little animals
• loads of patience
• clear vision of end result
• over a thousand of frames to choose from
• even more hours chopping them up
• creating digitally my own wooden ninja sword
• great fun from begin till end

The basic squirrel material got shot almost in my own backyard, but demanded anyway many walks in the woods at different times, to find the right conditions and cooperating models.

One of the unsuspected surprises was that the Great-tits where more interested to become models then the squirrels, although a pleasant surprise, it kept the squirrels at a distance.

But with enough patience it works out just fine. The most important trick to learn was the fact that the squirrels are more afraid of the photographer then the camera. 

So if you just stick out your arm and the camera slowly towards them and away from your face, turns out they are very interested in their own reflection they see in the lens. Aren't they cute?

The animation at the top shows the post-processing part quite detailed, but it is very important to ask help from some experts. Ones that know your target-group well, to get the right feedback for the subject your working on. In this case lots of thanks go to Pietari and Max, who where not afraid to give their honest opinions, including suggestions for improvement.

And last but not least, once the image is near completion, it is very important to let it rest a couple of days on your hard disk without looking at it. This in order to detach yourself a bit from it and making it easier to evaluate what is important. In this case the canvas size was enlarged, showing more of the surroundings in order to emphasize the squirrel's size compared to the whole.

Technical information: all images where shot with a canon 60D, canon 17-55mm 2.8 lens, time 1/125s, aperture f2.8, iSO A.