In times past, this crocodile could be found from Pakistan east to Myanmar, and throughout the great rivers of India. Today, it is critically endangered as there are only a couple of hundred left in the wild, with most of them in two big sanctuaries in northern India.

This is Makara. Hatched in Florida in June 2016, he was the first Indian gharial ever to be captive-bred outside of his native range. He is relatively small, but he managed to keep still during the shoot. I often put something on set to represent the model as stand-in while I’m setting up the lighting, as I want to keep the working window of time with the actual animal as short as possible.

In this case, the set up was relatively simple. On camera left, I placed a Satellite Evolution mini and to slightly soften it I used a 1/3 silk. Then on camera right, I positioned a ring flash quite close to camera in order to keep the shadows from becoming too dark. There was an additional reflector placed underneath the crocodile to bring out a little bit more detail under the jaw. Camera wise, it was a Canon 5DS with a 100mm macro lens set on F/16.

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