Taking quality pictures of your kill

[coach]

After a good discussion with Ravensfoot following his post in the 2011 Mule Deer picture thread, I've decided to start a new post about picture posting. I realize that we aren't all professional photographers, but feel it's in the best interest of the hunting community that we post pics that have some level of class to them. Simple guidelines such as: wipe the blood off, put the tongues back in, etc are easy to follow. This thread is about helping, not criticizing. Post up your pics and suggestions here. I'll get it started..

[coach]

Although I really like this picture of my daughter and our first bear, I had taken the clip out of the gun and made sure it was empty. Unfortunately, the bolt is closed in the picture. Lesson learned.

[Weatherby Fan]

Great pictures coach,I see nothing wrong with the picture of your daughter,you know the guns empty and where its pointed regardless of weather the bolt's closed or not.
If someone is going to pick that apart they better take up a new sport.
WF

[coach]

My daughter's first deer from two years ago. Again, gun empty, but lever closed. Gun precariously perched. I should have taken more time. Also - this pic was with my cell phone. Camera was in the truck. I really regret not taking the time to get better shots.

[coach]

Fair enough, weatherby fan. Funny - it's not the gun in most pics that bother me. It's the blood and gore. I posted a picture for a guy a couple weeks ago. It was of his whitetail buck, with a bullet hole through it's head and blood all over the ground. I said I'd post it for him - so I did. But I debated it for quite some time. I'm sure the hunter is a good guy - I just think we need to think before we shoot.. with our cameras too.

[Bow Walker]

I think it's all about the picture taker thinking of how the fina picture will look. By that I mean the the photographer should realized (and think about) the way everything "looks" before the shutter is released. It's called "Composing" the picture.

If we just stop and take a few moments to actually look at the 'scene' before we take the picture, we can correct a lot of 'mistakes'.

[Blainer]

I got this fella last week.
I cleaned him up,then decided to move him for the pictures and did'nt recognize he continued to bleed around the mouth.
dissappointed that I missed the boat on that one

[Bow Walker]

I'm as guilty as a lot of posters. I forgot to wash my hands/arms gefore posing with my prize. Lesson learned.......

[Barracuda]

a picture simply catches a moment in time.
If the animal has a bit of blood who cares , if the tongue is out well thats how it expired.
what looks bad is is badly shot animals that take a long time to die and it is easy to see . (guts blown out or limbs blown off etc) but again they are facts of hunting so a picture simply captures the moment.

pictures of an animal being butchered are bloody but by no means wrong. Pictures of wound tracts or damages really are not a problem either.

pictures that are gory for the sake of being gory are one thing but bullet damage and butchering should not be a problem.

[Bow Walker]

Of course - there will be those posters that will always "go for the realism" of the picture, saying that "posing a dead animal is not the way it is out there in the real world" but to those people I say "You owe it to your kill to be respectful - both in life and in death."