P#8: This Photograph of an African Wild Dog Won the BBC Endangered Species Award This Year

African Wild Hunting Dog in Botswana

Roy Toft: Okay. I've included five pictures for us to look at. They relate to what I've already talked about.

The first image is one of my favorites that I've ever taken. It is an African wild hunting dog and it's running with an antelope head in its mouth.

Sounds gruesome, but that's nature.

There's actually no blood in the African wild dog picture, so it doesn't look as gruesome.

It's very dynamic, it shows tons of motion -- this goes back to that slow shutter speed pan that I talked about. This picture was shot at 1/20th of a second, which is quite a slow shutter speed.

I'm panning with this African wild dog as he's running by me with his trophy in his mouth. (click the image for a larger version)

I have three labs so I can totally relate to this African wild hunting dog even though it's a wild animal, and it's not a domesticated dog. This is his trophy -- this is like my lab with a tennis ball.

When we saw this happen in Botswana, they had made a kill. This was a pack of 21 animals and they made this kill and they fed very quickly. Then this one dog picked up the head of antelope and marched around with his prize, so it's one of my favorite photos.

The photograph won -- I must say this because it's a very coveted award to win and I'm still happy it did because it's such a great picture and a great moment -- this was the BBC winner for the Endangered Species Award this year, so I was happy that this photo made it. I'm so proud of it.

Audri Lanford: Congratulations!

This has the streaking that you were talking about in the background as well.

Roy Toft: Yeah, all that grass starts to streak.

Notice the legs: all the legs are starting to blur out because they're moving. The only thing that stayed relatively sharp is the dog's head and that head of the springbok. Everything else has kind of a dreamy, very interesting blurring.

That's really what you're looking for in these types of imagery. You're not looking for a ton of stuff to be sharp. You really want to just have the eye of the animal or the head of the animal -- enough to ground that photo. You can't have everything blurry, you need something to ground it so people can lock onto something and realize what it is.

It's that motion and that kind of dreaminess that really makes these types of images quite powerful.

In conclusion

This photograph of an African wild dog shows how using a slow shutter speed and panning can create dreamy, interesting blurring and an amazing image.