German photograph Wiebke Haas’s subjects are graceful, longlegged, and stunningly graceful. But they aren’t human, they are horses.
But the wildlife photographer says that her path didn’t start out with a camera.
“On back pages of worksheets, free space in the daily newspaper or between the lines in the exercise book,” she writes on her website.
“Everywhere I found my scribbles and drawings. Then I met Spanish, a chestnut mare with a lot of fire in her blood. She infected me with the horse virus and I gave my heart to these animals.”
After her graduation, she decided she would combine her two passions to create a career: creativity and a love of animals.
From there, she started to study photography to become a wildlife photographer. And it’s not like animals are cooperative photographic subjects.
They don’t sit and smile when you ask them to. So she had to learn how to move around and with animals in order to get the perfect shot.
Not to mention having to learn the art of photography itself, which is much more than pressing a button on a camera.
“In addition to art, photography is first and foremost a craft. It takes not only an intuitive look for a good photo, but also the artistic and technical know-how. The viewer experiences only a fraction of the actual process. In order to create a truly harmonious work of art, one must use the rules of art,” Hass explains.
“Already in the apron, during the planning of the motive, during the shoot and in the postproduction. Many hours of photo editing can be behind a photo. Not to alienate the motif, but to create a harmonious overall impression. A picture has to ‘work’ to be really good.”
Though it might not always be easy, Hass says it’s always worth it.
“There is nothing better for me than living and working with the animals on a daily basis,” Hass explains.
And the results are absolutely stunning as you can see below. I mean, isn’t this creature just magnificent?!
The tousled hair, the soft emotional eyes, and those cute chin whiskers, what a beauty!
But Haas sees so much more when she captures these photos.
“It is said that animals can look into our souls and they are a mirror. We see more or less human character traits in our animals compared to our behavioral patterns,” she explains.
“We look for similar and see graceful, bizarre, wild or vulnerable and the Ureigene. Sometimes I take pictures of the animal as it is. Sometimes I take pictures of the animal as we would like to see it. And sometimes I take pictures of what we do not want to admit.”
You can find Haas’ work on Instagram here, Facebook here, and her website here.
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