Photographing Rabbits — William Esden Jones-Warner

Rabbits aren’t something I have put a huge amount of time into photographing in the past, this changed this summer. I had spotted a promising location by chance a few minutes’ drive from my house. I noticed it mainly because I kept having to dodge kittens that had strayed too close to the curb. I finally clocked that this was on a playing field which predominantly remained empty apart from the odd dog walker, this was ideal. I think with a lot of wildlife photography it is hugely down to the location. You want some level of human exposure s that the animals aren’t completely wild, you also want a flattering environment. The occasional dog walker here meant the rabbits were used to humans at a distance, the playing field meant the grass is kept relatively short yet there are wildflowers around the edge with longer more luscious grass and spring growth. The density of rabbits was high with numerous locations for the rabbits to enter and exit the foliage at the sides of the field – all great things. AND there were kits, this was vital. Adult rabbits for all their photogenicity are completely outclassed by kits and would require a large amount of behaviour for them to complete. This would be fine and a mix of kits and a lot of adults would deliver this.

I tried this location for sunset initially. However the treeline on the western edge of the field meant there was limited light at the end of the day, it was still workable but more limited and not always falling on the better parts of the warren. There were also more people at sunset. There would be dog walkers coming through every 20-30 minutes which would spook the rabbits back into their holes – a nightmare.

I tried the morning and this worked a lot better. The eastern edge of the field banked off so the first morning light would flood the entire area with that amazing golden hour light. There were also no walkers at this time 5:30 and earlier is still too early for even the most covid-nervous dog owner so I could have an hour or so without being disturbed.

A string of good weather days meant I could fully immerse in this new location trying out different angles, working with the wild flowers and the silhouettes. It was great. The best method for getting close was to walk straight up to the spot I wanted, the rabbits would go into their holes and I would set up waiting for them to come back out, stock still until they did. They would then pop out at certain distances and if they came out too far they were unlikely to come any close so the key would be to wait them out and eventually (most of the time) one would pop out of the bushes right into front and just hold it nerves long enough for its photo to be taken. Occasionally they would hang around but after hearing the shutter a few times they would plod on a bit further away. If you could remain still enough then the rabbits might even forget the shutter. I was using the sigma 150-600mm f5-6.3 on a full frame canon 1ds markiii and found this focal length of 600mm ideal range to have the distance to photograph them but still keep them at a distance so they exhibit their normal behaviour. The f6.3 on a FF also gave easily enough bokeh to isolation the rabbits nicely against the background.

It was through doing this for a fair few days over a couple of weeks I started to build up a collection of rabbit photos I was pleased with. Hours of lying on my stomach in dew and mud, getting aches and lying on my phone screen resulting in it cracking. Completely worth it and it resulted in learning so much about photographing these endearing animals.

1st time Photographing Rabbits in Richmond Park - London