I must confess, I love those Hyenas from The Lion King. A lot of people write them off as villains; I see them as opportunists. Shenzi is one of my favorite female Disney characters period, and, in 2011, my brother from another mother,  JSalinari83, sent me a pair of the new Hyena plushies which had been recently unveiled for the film’s Blu-Ray/DVD rerelease. The plushies are of extremely good quality; far superior to any of the Hyenas’ previous plush incarnations. They even have been designed so that their heads will bob up and down when shaken, as though they are laughing.

I was thinking ahead to  vancoufur and decided to use Shenzi as a model for some experimental photography. (Like all great models, she held her pose and did not complain). I wanted to see if I could shoot her in black and white profile. On my first attempt, I put Shenzi against a wall with sunlight coming through a window; the camera zoomed in and angled low to give her a larger sense of power and gravitas. I was pleased with the results...until it later occurred to me that the background was way too bright, and she had bled into the wall instead of standing out. Shenzi looked flat.

So, a day later, I waited until after sunset, took out a portable desk lamp, and turned up the camera exposure. After I had grabbed focus, I set the timer and got into position. When the shutter opened, I moved the light around Shenzi in a semi-circle to try and evenly distribute the lighting, hoping to avoid deep shadows in the places that I wanted accentuated and trying to keep too much light from falling on the wall behind her. I took multiple exposures, moving the light in different directions and keeping it held in different positions for various lengths of time, until one photograph popped out from all of the rest. A few Photoshop retouches later, voila!