This is a featured article for the topic wildlife photography.
A few practised strokes by an ink-brush artist are enough to convey the clownlike face, complete with black eye patches, of the monochromatic giant panda. Monochrome films are also a good medium for taking panda portraits, but they cannot convey the subtle nuances of the variety of plants in an ecosystem. Colour transparency film has the edge here. However, because it has more limited latitude than monochrome film, achieving the correct exposure at both extremes of the tonal range with black-and-white animals like pandas may prove tricky when working in conditions of contrasty light and shadow.
Nowadays wild pandas are confined to western China; but fossil remains indicate that they once extended as far south as Burma and North Vietnam, as far north as Beijing, and as far east as Shanghai and Hong Kong. Satellite photographs prove that between 1974 and 1989 half of the panda's natural forest habitat was destroyed to provide land for agriculture. Pandas now live in small pockets within mountainous areas in three provinces—Sichuan, Gansu, and Shaanxi—along the eastern flank of the Tibetan plateau at altitudes ranging from 2,300 to 3,300 m (7,216-9,840 ft). During the summer, pandas move up to higher and cooler elevations and descend again during the winter months.
The mountainous terrain makes it difficult to count the giant panda population accurately, but it is estimated at c.1,000 individuals in the wild. Even biologists spend long periods attempting to track down individual pandas, so that the odds of finding and photographing a panda at large are remote. It is, however, possible to photograph captive-bred pandas within huge natural forested enclosures at Wolong in Sichuan province. But irrespective of location, the panda is a classic example of a creature whose behaviour and habitat must be understood as a precondition for successful photography.
The forest is a mix of evergreen conifers and deciduous trees, which cast shade for most of the year. Beneath the tree canopy are the bamboo stands so essential for the panda's survival. The panda has a virtually exclusive diet of bamboo leaves, which it consumes for more than half of every 24-hour day, just to stay alive. This makes it relatively easy to photograph a panda feeding, but more difficult to record any other behaviour.
Although pandas sit or even lie down to feed, because their jaws move incessantly to munch the bamboo a shutter speed of at least 1/125 s is needed to freeze the action. Unless a fast f/2.8 lens is used, the shutter speed in poor light will make a 100-200 ISO film obligatory, especially if the lens is stopped down to gain necessary depth of field. Creatures that have a black eye surrounded by black fur or feathers need to have a highlight in the eye to make them appear alive. Sometimes a skylight reflection is sufficient, but when working in forests a fill-flash is often necessary to gain a little sparkle. However, during rain or snowfall, fill-flash adds myriad highlights to the wet fur, with most unnatural results.
Once a panda starts to feed, it is possible to take a series of pictures illustrating the process. The hands have a sixth digit or pseudo-thumb, to manipulate the bamboo stems towards the mouth. Each side branch is neatly bitten off the stem until a sizeable bunch appears at one side of the mouth. This is then removed so that the bamboo can be eaten from the hand. After feeding, pandas may rest or walk to a stream or river to drink. These times present rare opportunities to get pictures of a panda reflected in the water. Play is an important stage in the development of any young animal, and young pandas will spend time frolicking with other youngsters, or playing with plants or bark shed from a tree. Both youngsters and more active adults will climb trees, using their strong claws to grip the trunk. They climb above the shrub layer until they find a suitable fork or horizontal branch on which to rest and survey their forest environment. The descent is even speedier than the ascent, often with the animal sliding down the trunk like a fireman down a pole. Sometimes it misjudges the distance and crashes unceremoniously to the ground, but its thick pelt helps to cushion the fall.
Unlike brown bears, pandas do not hibernate during the winter, but remain active throughout the year and feed daily regardless of the weather. In the open, a panda looks conspicuous against the green vegetation, but when bathed in dappled light it merges with sunlit and shady patches on the forest floor. After a winter snowfall the black-and-white fur is barely distinguishable from the dark trunks and white snow. Although the winter sun is at a low angle, more light penetrates the canopy during this season in areas where deciduous trees are reduced to winter skeletons, thereby aiding photography with slower, fine-grain emulsions. After a recent snowfall is a good time to search for panda paw prints for photography.
The more time spent with any animal in the field increases the chance of getting a grab shot of unexpected action; such as two young pandas locked in an embrace tumbling in the snow, or a panda that loses its footing on a slippery slope and ends up sliding down on its back with all four feet in the air.
Photography helps both to increase public awareness of endangered species such as the giant panda and to raise funds to assist the conservation of this charismatic animal. However, the use of digital manipulation to ‘drop’ a panda into a more attractive but totally false habitat is not only misleading but also a biological untruth.
