About hvhe1 / Hennie van Heerden  

What can I say? I just love to travel and to take pictures. It's a great hobby and my way of relaxing. I'm not out for the perfect shot; I'm out for a picture that I like. What I like might not necessarily be what you like, mind you. But it's like 'trophy hunting'. Sometimes you just know, when you push that shutter, "yes!".

I often get the question how I get the animals to pose for me. I even got a question once (the 'Twin' Eagles) how I got those animals to 'my studio'. Ha, yeah, can you imagine dragging 4 full grown Polar Bears to a studio and then line them up the way I want to?
I'm afraid the reality is less adventurous: wait, wait, wait and ...... wait some more. Your feet get sore, your back aches, your arm muscles start to tremble from holding up the camera and lens. But in the end, when I get home with a picture that I like and that does the animal the right it deserves, to me it's worth it every time!

I like to spend time with an animal. For me the 'see and shoot' thing doesn't work. You almost always miss that one moment. If I see an animal I like I get an image in my head of how I would like to capture it. After that it's only a matter of waiting. Maybe I get it within a minute, maybe an hour. Or maybe I have to return later, maybe even a month or a year later. But invariably, when you take your time and give the animal the opportunity to get used to your presence, (either free or zoo animals), they will do something that I would like to capture! Respect is a keyword here!
When I finally capture that one picture, it is often the only pick from a series of hundreds, maybe even thousands of pictures.

People ask me what camera I use:
I use Canon cameras (40D and 400D) and Canon lenses (ranging from 10 to 500mm).


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I'm Female and Taken.

The Netherlands