Photographing Hedgehogs

I have to confess, I dread needing to photograph our baby hedgehogs. Or any of our hedgehogs for that matter. My husband is an incredible photographer. If you don't believe me, check out his website at www.waninglight.com. However, he is NOT the most patient man on earth, and, well, photographing hedgehogs can be infuriating on the best of days. There are several kinds of hedgehogs when it comes to photography. Some are actually born stars and sit cutely to get their picture taken. They are the VAST minority, at least in our herd. A lot of hedgehogs, especially the really outgoing ones, tend to take off running like they have a jet pack in their bottom. This makes silly details like focusing the camera almost impossible. About the fifty third time we set the hedgehog back where it needs to be and Bill tries yet again, he's usually getting a little cross. Worse yet are the ones who are such incredible, sweet, outgoing animals when I play with them, but they HATE the sound of the camera. So hedgehog sits there looking gorgeous, Bill snaps the pic, and down come the visor quills. Yes, hedgehog reflexes ARE even faster than a rapid shutter speed. So we spend the next few minutes simulating shutter sounds to try to get the hedgehog used to it. With some it works. Others are even more persistent than we are, and continue to drop their forehead quills over...and over....and over.... Thats about the time when Bill mutters "can we come back to this one....please?" The worst are the ones who have a good or even excellent temperament when you play with them, but who are CONVINCED that the table and camera are a horrible trap set by some incredibly evil monster. So the sweet, smooth quilled, outgoing animal I was just playing with and looking forward to showing off is now a hissing ball of quills. No one wants to see a picture of a hedgehog doing a cactus imitation. Its a great punchline, but not so good for the photo album, especially not for an animal who is usually not at all like that. We've run into all three tonight, and that was just getting pictures of the five babies available. We still need to get pictures of somewhere around half our herd. I'm making no promises on how far we get tonight, but I"m hopeful. I can't believe that we don't have ANY of our 2007 crew up yet. There are some real lookers we've held back, so I'm definitely looking forward to getting pictures of them posted so we can share. Now if someone would just invent double sided short acting tape so we could get them to hold still...... ;-D