Think like a predator: Wildlife Photography Tips and Tricks
Taking photographs of wildlife has been one of the most attempted hobbies for many photographers for more than one hundred years. In that time, the skills that make a good wildlife photographer have been defined and honed by thousands of people who have been able to perfect the skills necessary to capture some very captivating images. Here are some tips and tricks to help you capture some striking images of living nature yourself.
Movement and Stillness
Capturing wildlife on camera is pretty simple, but it is anything but easy. In order to get an up close and personal feel from your images, you will have to master spotting movement and remaining still. Animals are much more difficult to photograph than are human beings. While humans will allow you to pose them, control the lighting, and take multiple exposures, animals are not so forgiving nor cooperative. In many cases, you will need to sit for hours in a single location waiting for the animal to stride into view in the right area for you to capture them on camera.
When it comes to being stealthy, you will have to be very still. Movement, even slight movement, will alert animals even at a distance to your presence. Being still is more difficult than many imagine. If you want to gain the skills necessary to capture wildlife on camera, then you need to start thinking like hunter or predator. Instead of shooting the animal with a bow and arrow or a gun, you will be using your camera.
Concealment and Distance
One of the biggest advantages of humans over animals, beyond the opposable thumb, is our ability to reason and deceive. We can conceal ourselves intentionally better than can animals when we put our minds to it. However, nature has equipped her children with some very advanced and sensitive equipment to detect predators. You will have to conceal your noise, your body, and your scent if you wish to be successful.
One of the best ways to conceal all of these things is by increasing the distance between you and your ‘prey’. By using advanced telephoto lenses and multipliers, we have the ability to capture animals in their natural surroundings without ever alerting them to our presence. While this might mean purchasing some more expensive lenses, the images you capture may well pay for the lens in the long run. People and magazines will pay a great deal of money for the right image of the right animal.
Practice, Practice, Practice
As with any skill, the more practice you put in, the better you will get. The nice thing about wildlife photography is that your practice is your hobby. You have the chance of getting ‘lucky’ right out of the gate, so take your time and learn from every trip into the field or the forest. People are apt to learn more from their mistakes than they are from their successes, so when something doesn’t turn out like you intended, find a solution for it, and then remember it the next time you venture into the habitat of the animal which you seek to capture on camera.
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There are 2 comments on this post.
Trackback URL | Comments RSS FeedHi Sandro,
Do you know of any good tutorials for learning Photoshop in English, ones that go at a manageable less than warp speed. I have found that for one of them I have to pause every minute just to understand the instructions. Maybe I have lived in Japan too long. Help!
Ginny
Unfortunately I don’t know any specific resource… I always wanted to write some photoshop tutorials, but really couldn’t find time for that.