These wildlife images by a young man from Finland will leave you astonished…
I love photography, and I have been drawn to close-up shots of all sorts of things. Just the other day, I went out taking pictures with my son, moving into the intimate spaces of a nearby cemetery.
Amongst the crumbling stones, I found the perfect object to capture – a large fern growing from a rotten log. It was exhilarating to teach my son how to crawl on the ground to get that perfect shot. And then, later that night, I saw the most amazing wildlife images online.
These intimate shots made our amateur work look like child’s play. This photographer gave a whole new meaning to intimate creativity! The shots were enchanting, to say the least.
Konsta Punkka, a 21-year-old Finish photographer seems to have done the impossible. As we all know, animals in the wild are shy, and rarely ever captured in up close shots.
This wasn’t about some old fern, this subject matter rarely stood still for such artistic representation. Punkka has been able to get closer to these wild animals and capture some of the most detailed images ever seen!
I bet you’re wondering how he managed this feat. It’s not that he has some secret language that enables him to speak to the wild, it’s not any sort of magic either, and it’s not fake! These are real wildlife images, with animals such as bears, fox, and even timid deer!
They all stare deeply into the lens, so close that individual hairs reflect the light of the sun. So, close that water droplets shimmer on nature’s fur coats. So, how does he get so close? Maybe a personal example will shed some light on this phenomenon.
https://www.facebook.com/UNBiodiversity/videos/1036814113063287/
My Goat
Let me tell you a story that will help you to believe how Punkka captured these images. I have a goat. Yes, I have an animal that was once timid, living in my back yard. She usually runs away whenever anyone comes too close. She’s afraid that we all mean her harm.
And she was like this for months – almost a years’ time, she fled into the brush of the nearby woods at even the smallest threat. But I was determined, and I had named her as well.
Her name is Bolt, and she is no longer afraid of me, or my children. It’s simply because I had patience and kept offering food. That is exactly what Konsta Punkka did when he captured the world’s most amazing wildlife images.
It’s about patience, I would surmise because the information is unclear about how long it took Punkka to get the desired photographs. I am sure the animals came closer and closer as time went on, testing the alien presence near their homes. I wonder what they were thinking when the flash went off and the click of the camera sounded in the silence.
Who knows. Did they continue to eat long after the image was captured?
Konsta Punkka told Bored Panda,
“The feeding thing in my photographs is more like a thing I want to show to the people, that the animals trust me and they allow me to get close to them.”
Trust is an amazing thing. It’s funny how it works and how I can form strong bonds between us and the wild. Hopefully, we will continue to see much more of Punkka’s work and take pleasure in the untamed beauty of the wild.
Thank you for another perspective of our world!
You can find more details about his work here: