The photograph of the month for April 2024 comes from my recent winter expedition to the east coast of Greenland (full trip report coming soon). It shows an Arctic Snow Hare in full gallop during a howling -40º C blizzard behind the small Inuit village of Ittortoqitormit on the East coast of Greenland. I photographed it with the Canon EOS R3, and the Canon RF 600mm f4L IS lens. The real challenge of this photograph (other than avoiding frostbite) was keeping the fast-moving subject in the frame as it galloped at high speed through the snow. The blizzard wind was incredibly strong, making hand-holding the lens impossible. To counter this, I lay down in the snow, using the snow cover as a makeshift tripod, cranked up the ISO to 1600 and opened up the f-stop to f6.3. This close to the subject meant the depth of field would be extremely narrow, making focus critical. Anything less than perfect focus on the eye would result in zero keepers. Incredibly, the Canon EOS R3 could track and nail focus on the eye of the fast-moving Snow Hare despite the howling wind and flying snow. Focus Case 2 was used to ignore the whirling snow around the hare. The blue background is not the sky (which could not be seen in the white-out conditions), but the wooden wall of one of the small painted houses in the village. This is an excellent example of how depth of field control can be carefully employed to control backgrounds and enhance a photograph. Without the blue background, there would be almost no contrast between the Snow Hare and the background.
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