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Preface
So my colleague, Thumper S. Thompson, has lit a fire under my battooskie to get me working on a new blog post, my first post here on Running Bun Magazine. In my first post, I should unequivocably state that I am a hooman! Yes, that's right, there are hoomans involved with things here at Running Bun Magazine but only as much as is simply unavoidable. As an animal photographer of cute and fluffy beings (and of the occasional not so cute but still awesome being), I expect my little, and sometimes big, models to do their job, that is, to look cute. Their job is to arrest the camera and thus the viewer of the result.
Consider yourself under arrest. I mean really, the camera is like my Bobbie stick. I use it to capture and detain many widdle cyoot bunny rabbits who've run amok, all those irreverent lagomorphs out there marauding in the street, fields, and in our homes (yes, in our very homes right under our noses!) wanton, flagrant perpetrators of being criminally cute! It's must be stopped and I must stop it! And so I do; usually with f11 through f16, or so.
Magic Secrets Revealed!
I have a big black barrel, a Nikkor 18-200mm actually, and I aim it head on at those little twitching noses. They know when they see it that I mean business. I have a lot of help with the bunny shoots. First order of help comes from MagicMan, my rabbit herder, cat herder, and all around handy magician. Oh yea, and I'm married to him. He corrals the rascally rabbits for me and places them up on the shooting stage. I know it all sounds like one of those attractions at the board walk or carnival where one pays money to shoot at targets and win a plush toy. Guess this is kind of similar in that we, MagicMan and I, did pay a lot of money to do this shooting! There's about $10-12,000 worth of ammo, or studio photography equipment contributing to each shot! That's a lot of dough, ain't it? And we did it for free, free for the bunnies, I mean. Not free for us, we didn't make any money off their photo shoots at all...and we had to take care of the bunnies for a long time until they got adopted. Take them to the vet, pay for their food and lodging, fill the gas tank to take them to bunny matches, it just goes on and on. So can you blame us for trying to recoup some of that? We never really could but we're going to try and hope bunny peeps out there will have sympathy for us because we really blew a wad on them and there's literally nothing left for us.
After MagicMan rounds up the little bunnies and places them up on the shooting table, he bribes them with carrots, kisses, and papaya tablets. There it is! The secret! Yes, we really do use a carrot and stick to get a lot of these shots! But that's really only a minor part of the whole secret to a successful bunny rabbit photo shoot. There is a lot of animal communication going on. Also a lot of fear factor. Truth be told, at first the bunnies are all mostly terrified. Time was, almost every single studio shot we've ever done was benevolently presided over by a couple of large soft, peachy, pink parrots, our two fabulous Moluccan cockatoos, Happy Amadeus and Mrs. Mozart!
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| Mrs. Mozart sits only feet away from the shooting table. All content and images © Running Bun Magazine. Use without permission prohibited. |
That's only one secret behind our rock star rabbit photo shoots. In subsequent posts, the ones that I will write, not ones written by Running Bun Magazine Senior Writer Thumper S. Thompson, I'll tell a little more about each the many secrets behind a successful bunny photo shoot, ok? So y'all be sure to stop by regularly and check it out! Yea, but I guess those are the first two secrets; that I have a photographer's assistant helping me, MagicMan, and that I have a magician's assistant helping me, too, Mrs. Mozart, Moluccan cockatoo! I do really mean a magician's assistant too as Mrs. Mozart lived with a real, professional magician for the first 17 of her now 31 years and she brings much magic to the entire household here in this outpost of strange and wondrous things on the edge of reality! And, by the way, Mrs. Mozart is a rescue Moluccan cockatoo, as is her neighbor, Happy Amadeus.
And the secret voice of rabbits mentioned in the headline? What was that all about? The secret voice of rabbits is only partially heard through a type of morse code pounded out with their hind foot and the other part ever so softly heard with the feather soft up and down rustling of their whiskers through clock-like positions, each of which has very specific meaning. Their secret voice is a real, spoken voice. But it's so soft, barely audible, and the room must be so very quiet for it to be heard. No I'm not talking about their snort, or growl, or contented tooth purr. I am talking about their voice, about what I have observed as a result of living with both parrots and other animals and the species jealousy which parrots arouse in other animals when they shout out, "Hello!" That jealousy causes other animals to work with their mouths as best they can to also produce a garbled, "Hello" or some sort of audible sound.
I'll detail these stories in future posts, stories that read like those of Mischka the famous talking Husky of YouTube, or the many famous Siamese cats who are trained by their breeder to yell, "hello!" at cat shows, and so on. But that's all I'm going to say for now. (At least it should be clear why the heck I use an alias for me and my husband! Ha!) Follow me (said the white rabbit), follow this blog, and I will make good on my promise to reveal all of these secrets in time. If you were a true white rabbit of the rabbit cyber multi-verse, you could have already dug up all of these secrets, as they lie in wait, an excavation extraordinaire hidden forever in the labyrinth of the ether.
So for now the secrets revealed are that I have a second hooman helping me and that I have a former magician's assistant, a Moluccan cockatoo, blowing kisses at the bunnies when I ask her to calm the bunnies down. They're all scared of those huge parrots at first but then I tell Mozart, "blow kisses, Mozart, please," and she throws the sweetest kisses imaginable. If you know cockatoos, then you know they can sound sweeter than anything on Earth when they choose. And so, the bunny photos are proof positive of that.
Lighting setup is something else I'll discuss in future posts. And you might even see a video of a shoot now and then. Here's some teaser photos of my shooting table.
So for now the secrets revealed are that I have a second hooman helping me and that I have a former magician's assistant, a Moluccan cockatoo, blowing kisses at the bunnies when I ask her to calm the bunnies down. They're all scared of those huge parrots at first but then I tell Mozart, "blow kisses, Mozart, please," and she throws the sweetest kisses imaginable. If you know cockatoos, then you know they can sound sweeter than anything on Earth when they choose. And so, the bunny photos are proof positive of that.
Lighting setup is something else I'll discuss in future posts. And you might even see a video of a shoot now and then. Here's some teaser photos of my shooting table.
Tread Lightly.
RP
Oh, and by the way, poor Skennen here was a blue ribbon winning rabbit at a county fair one day. Later that day, his owner abandoned him and his brother, also a prize winner, at the county animal shelter. But we went and got him, got him neutered and then matched to a lovely French lop from Iowa and he continues to live happily ever after.
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| The shooting table or stage with 2 of the 5 lights visible. All content and images © Running Bun Magazine. Use without permission prohibited. |
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| Foster bunny rabbit Skennen waits for the barrel to load. All content and images © Running Bun Magazine. Use without permission prohibited. |
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| Foster Bunny Rabbit Skennen now a Rock Star Rabbit! All content and images © Running Bun Magazine. Use without permission prohibited. |
Oh, and by the way, poor Skennen here was a blue ribbon winning rabbit at a county fair one day. Later that day, his owner abandoned him and his brother, also a prize winner, at the county animal shelter. But we went and got him, got him neutered and then matched to a lovely French lop from Iowa and he continues to live happily ever after.
-RabbitPhotog