In May 2004, for the second month in a row, Digital Camera Magazine published another one of my photographs in the Hotshots section of the magazine, this time of a Swan resting. This shot was taken whilst on a 'photo meet' organised through www.phoenix2go.co.uk at the British Wildlife Center in Kent. Behind The Shot
Whilst wandering around the grounds I noticed this Swan sleeping behind a farm gate so I crept up to it and poked my Canon 70-300 IS f/4-5.6 USM through the bars of the gate and grabbed this shot just as the Swan opened his eye. It all happened so fast that I didn't have time to check aperture, shutter speed or metering mode but fortunately it came out perfectly and the photo you see is basically as it is straight from the camera. Some people might say that this shot breaks a few composition rules such as having the eye in the middle of the frame but sometimes rules can be broken and I personally think this is one such time. When taking the shot I deliberately wanted to frame it so that the Swan's head was surrounded by the white of his body with his left wing over his face and his right wing behind his head as I thought that this would help to give a softer feel to the shot and also differed slightly from the 'normal' Swan shots that everyone takes and that I wanted to avoid.

In the end it turned out that I was lucky to get this shot as just after I took it I saw another photographer approach the Swan only to be attacked by it. You can see this photo in my gallery