When you are in the presence of Komodo dragons, the largest living lizards, it gives the feeling of walking with a dinosaur. They are primitive, intriguing, a little scary, and great to photograph. My goal was to show the projection of their forked tongue, which I was able to because of the 14 fps frame rate I used, and their reptilian way of walking. I really wanted to lie on the ground to get a dramatic low-angled perspective, but 1) the park ranger who was with me and my photo tour group wouldn't allow that, and 2) it would simply be too dangerous. Dragons don't kill their prey outright. Their saliva is so toxic that all they have to do is bite once and over the course of 2 or 3 days the animal drops dead. The dragons simply follow the animal until the end. I used a 400mm telephoto set to 158mm for this shot -- which tells you I was pretty close -- and my settings were 1/250, f/9, and 125 ISO. I took this picture on Komodo Island in Indonesia.
0 Comments