Hey Everyone, Mad Mags Here
 
Melissa Litwicki wrote:
>I would like to congratulate you on your ferret pictures web page, and ask
>how in *bleepity*bleep*bleep* you got your ferrets to pose so attractively
>for the photographer.
 
Obviously, it just a question of extreme talent on my part. ;-)
 
Seriously, just to give a little background, I literally grew up with a
camera in my hands.  My Dad was a major camera nut and I have taken
journalism and photography since around 1970.  So part of it is just
pratice.
 
But the main part of it is a) having a helper and b) lots of film and
patience.
 
I will tell you how it is set up.  I have a Canon camera, old, you have to
set everything yourself.  I use a 110mm lens, that is the best length for
portraits but have taken some with 50mm.  Both work fine.  I use 100 asa
film and a very good flash.  It is a Sunpack that you can adjust from 1/8
power to full.  I also use 2 incandescent studio lights, 600 watt lamps in
each.  The pack of 2 ran me around $80.
 
Here's how I place stuff.  I used my dining room table.  I sat a Totally
Ferret 20lb shipping box on its narrow, long end.  Any box of suitable
length and height should do.  I got myself a couple of yards of upolstery
fabric that I liked and draped it over the box.  Put the camera on a tripod
directly in front of box, level with where the ferrets would be, and
prefocused.  The two lights I sat on either side of the camera, so they
would be triagulated to the box.  The idea is to get rid of shadow you don't
want, so sit a vase or something and fiddle with the lights until it looks
good to you.
 
Get lots of squeaky toys and teasers AND another person.  Make sure all
other ferrets are up, so there is no distractions.  Place victim...I mean
your ferret on the table while the helper is grabbing their attention and
catching them when they jump off.  Take lots of pictures and you might get
one really nice one.  You can use props (like my box) but it is hard.  Miss
Jezzie just happened to place her foot on the box while I was looking.  I
probably took 15 shots of her to get that one.  If you look at the pics on
the web, you can see Alan holding a squeeky toy to get Miss Delilah's
attention.  Georgie climbed over the box at one point.
 
You can try unshaded house lamps and other cameras, whatever you have.  The
lamps help with lighting and also cut red eye.  They are on all the time so
the flash doesn't affect the eye color in your pictures.  That is the
biggest thing to me.If anyone has any questions about it, feel free to
write.
 
Old rule of thumb with photographers, if you shoot a 36 exposure roll of
film and get one really nice picture, you have done great!
 
Mad Maggie and her Mo' Mob of Marvelous Models
[Posted in FML issue 1900]