How To Photograph a Goat
I spend a lot of time driving Virginia’s backroads. My schedule has me landing in random towns, on random days, to explore new potters or kombucha distilleries or an undiscovered marina. This week I was in Farnham, Virginia and took a photograph that makes me happy. Although I’m not a professional photographer, I love taking photos. And I love goats, their agile, noble bodies the perfect pipeline for their playful antics. So I thought I’d share some tips on taking a picture of a goat. This will also apply to horses and sheep. But not to bison or snakes.
Start with Reverence. As I meandered with my car through this particular section of Virginia’s Northern Neck, it seemed houses were separated by miles. It was lovely to see all the clover fields in full purple bloom and other treasures. There’s an unspoken accord you make with the landscape on a day that’s glistening in sunlit reflections bouncing off newly cut crops. When you glance a certain way, the waves of grain that Katherine Lee Bates wrote of actually look like a body of water. And what a surprise to find an intersection where goats and only goats were the focal point of my view shed. I pulled the car over, intentionally parking a long distance from them. Slowly, and without making eye contact, I started walking over. There were about nine goats in the field, all of them grouped together. Young and old, they appeared to be teens and parents. The pre-teens were back at the barn watching Stranger Things on their iPads. The goats started shifting slightly when I walked by, moving delicately in relation to my movement. If I stopped, they stopped. If I edged forward, some edged back in equal distance. In this photo, two out of three are responding to my presence. One is too hungry to care.
Approaching and shooting.
Make Them Believe You’re Uninterested. I deliberately walked past the goats as if interested in another field. I stood, with my back turned toward them, staring at and studying the field opposite theirs, and I even took pictures of that nothingness. Soon the goats became acclimated to the “camera” (my smartphone). They were seeing some shiny new thing I held in my hand, but at the same time they knew I wasn’t paying attention to them. With my body language and lack of eye contact, I tried convincing them something far more important was happening elsewhere.
Begin Your Approach With Patience. After I had stood for a long time looking at and photographing things other than the goats, I gingerly headed back toward them. By now they were used to my being around and didn’t seem to care about my intentions. If at first they were assessing whether I was friend or foe, by now they probably sensed I was a friend. Or even better, perhaps I was a friend with food. Apples and pears are often a great lure with which to invite farm animals to come to you. It’s worked for me with cows and horses. But I didn’t have anything to offer on this trip. Nevertheless, it might have been the expectation of food that caused them to stick around and in some cases come up to me. In addition, I spoke a little, with a pleasant tone like their human guardians might use. Soon, I was feeling like Dr. Doolittle. Nature photographer Lynda Richardson (lyndarichardsonphotography.com) spends days on end in a blind - in just one spot - for hours and sometimes days to capture a photo. She’s willing to do what most others don’t have the patience for.
Work Around the Obstructions. In this photo, you can see the wire fencing posing a problem. It obstructs the image. So while I might have gained their trust, now I had to figure out how to work around this obstruction:
Wire fence dilemma.
A practical way to eradicate wire from a photo is to move in closer and shoot through the fence. I never went past the fence, but rather shot between wires, and made sure not to touch what could be an electric fence.
There’s no Such Thing as Overshooting. Once I positioned myself closer, I shot as many pictures as I could, as quickly as I could, each time looking for an opportunity for a nice composition or an expression. There’s no such thing as overshooting. Just keep clicking away.
Trying another angle.
Getting closer. Wire fence is still a problem.
Try Various Angles. During this time, you’re very close in. You’re nearer to capturing something that might be memorable. Keep on shooting. In the above example I tried photographing around wire without obstructing their faces (left). Then I tried kneeling down (right).
Get Lower. Oftentimes when you see images of photographers, they’re down low to the ground. That’s because the position offers a new perspective. When a photo is taken from a 2-foot high perspective vs. a 6-foot high perspective, the image can feel novel because we as humans don't generally watch the world around us from that low angle. See how my first inclination in the image (above left) is taken from above and angled down. It’s actually not bad, but I’m starting to see something take shape by lowering the whole camera (above right). Next, in the two following photos I’m waiting on goats to clear out. Right now, no one’s cooperating, except the Alpha Goat staring into the camera. In reviewing all the images, I noticed that this guy or gal (both sexes can have hairy chins) is really focused on me.
Expect the Moment to be Lost, But Stay Anyway. Now it’s getting interesting because Mr. or Ms. Alpha is showing a lot of personality. That’s not enough, though, because the scene is still too crowded. Your luck can go either way. Maybe something will spook them and they’ll all run off. Or maybe they’ll keep moving around in the composition in a way that just doesn’t work. In the end, the other goats cleared out of frame, and I was left with a smiling bearded goat, plus two other members of the clan looking into the camera for a picture perfect moment.
