The 25 most remarkable animal pictures of the past decade 2015: Shadow Walker

Often, urban foxes are seen only as a brief glimpse of movement as they dart from one shadow to the next. I wanted to try and convery this sense of living in the shadows, but in a different way to merely seeing the fox in a dark environment. To do this I wantes to catpure just the shadow of the subject, rather than the animal itself. I set my camera up high on it's tripod, so that I would see the houses and night sky beyond, but also so that I could ensure the fox would not be in the frame. I positioned the flash gun low to the floor. The idea was for the image was that upon first look you would almost think it's just a silhoueete, but upon further viewing, would realise it was a shadow of the fox as it walked across my decking. SETTINGS: Nikon D810, 18-35 G lens, 32mm, 30seconds, f8, ISO 1250., GITZO tripod, RRS BH-55 ballhead, Camtraptions PIR sensor, Nikon SB800 flash LOCATION: Surrey, UK. PROCESSING: Adjust for the slight perspective shift from having the lens up high, pointing downwards to capture the shadow witout the fox in frame. Localised white balance and exposure work to balance the night sky and flash, and compensaute for the high flash power required to make the shadow as defined as possible.

Richard Peters/WPOTY