It is kind of hard to tell, but that is a sweet raccoon sitting on the staircase. I don’t know about you, but camera flashes always startle me, especially at night. I am temporarily blinded, bouncing off whatever object comes into my path. Furthermore, it just downright annoys me that it lasts for so long.
So I really wonder: how do animals feel when we snap their night portrait? I mean, a raccoon especially. It is a nocturnal animal who must have great eyesight in dimly lit situations, which I would assume means its eyes are extremely dilated. When I have had my eyes dilated at the eye doctor, nothing was worse than bright light. So I cannot even imagine the pain that I have caused this poor raccoon by trying to catch him in action.
Readers, please be compassionate next time you take a night photo of an animal and remember how uncomfortable it must be for them … unless, of course, they are attacking you, then the flash-bang is one of your best moves to disorient them.
It’s got to be worse when you’ve got night vision.
[…] (For those who spotted the re-use of the photo, you should know that sometimes the muse strikes us more than once around the same event. Want to read more raccoon themed news?) […]