Shooting Shelly, the perky hamster

I don't have any models to shoot. I only have a cat and a hamster at my disposal.

And while the cat - Mischief - is obviously annoyed with me clicking around him, he still finds a grain of patience and works with me. Sometimes.

Shelly the hamster, however, has no clue what's happening and keeps mingling around like she has a pair of Duracell batteries in her cheeks. 

She is so vivid and perky and it's impossible to have her still.

I tried to take a photo of her when I first started to use this camera and I thought it can't be that hard. Little did I know how fast does she move. 

The fact that she doesn't understand me makes it all even harder. I guess that's why people have dogs.

So, anyway, I took her out of the cage, set up a white background and placed her there. I lost her a few times while adjusting my camera cause she's gone in a blink of an eye.

After I chased her for a while and finally caught her, I placed her on the spot again and lost her again in a few seconds. Then I realized I need a bait. First lesson, checked.

I had an apple so I figured that will be a nice treat for her and will keep her busy. It turned out I was right, and while I somehow managed to keep her on the spot, she was still fast. 

She was biting off those chunks of apple like there was no tomorrow.

Actually, she was eating some, and storing some in her cheeks. It was all good at the beginning, but after two minutes she was already so full of apple that I had to stop. I don't know if hamsters have some kind of  sensor to know when to stop eating, but I swear if I'd let her eat some more, she would die afterwards. So then I learned that the hamster shooting sessions can last only for a few minutes at the time. Second lesson, checked.

I tried to photograph her again the next day, and then again a few weeks later. I also tried today to see if maybe I'll do it right this time. I can't seem to find the good way to capture her, have the sharp photo and properly exposed, without noise or blur.

Today, I did it outside but as she keeps moving fast and running away it makes it complicated to have settings right every moment. I normally use the manual mode to shoot, but perhaps in this situation I should have used one of the semi-automatic modes instead. Yeah, the shutter priority mode definitely might have helped. I'll try that next time. Third lesson, yet to be checked.






It's pretty challenging, all in all, to get her right, since I don't really have studio conditions and my background consists of a piece of paper which is relatively small, especially for her jumping around. Even when she's eating and is pretty much still, her movements are shaky.

I tried with other treats too. Don't ever get her a carrot, cause she'll store the whole thing and won't be able to move. I had to take that carrot away from her.

I don't think she liked that red plum. And she ain't a fan of the celery either. She took a few bites and start running away. Or maybe she was just distracted. I believe shooting outside makes her more curious and she just wants to wander around. Good thing the space is limited, cause I'm shooting on the rooftop, so there's nowhere she can go, but definitely a big place for her to run around and make me busy chasing her.

She liked the walnut, but the piece was too small so she ate it in a heartbeat and by the time I got my camera it was already gone. The best piece of fruit turned out to be an apple, because she enjoys it and she bites of piece by piece, so that gives me time to actually make couple of photos.

In the normal session, I make maybe 30 photos in total, before she gets full, and that's it. Time to sleep and see you next time.



She doesn't care at all.
I really need to find some human models.