How to Get the Shot: 9 Tips From Wildlife Photographers
chatted with several pro wildlife photographers to find out how they
get the shot, time and time again. Here are their tips for snapping
compelling images of wildlife.
1. Do your research: The best shots start before photographers even set foot in the field
Joe Capra, a wildlife and time-lapse photographer who has been featured by outlets like National Geographic,
Animal Planet and Discovery Channel emphasizes the importance of
preparation. "Research the wildlife that's likely to be present at your
shooting location. Try to learn about their behavior, movements and
habitat. Research the location you'll be shooting so you're able to
maximize your chances of finding the wildlife, the best places to shoot
from and which direction sunlight will be coming from at various times
of day."
For example, if your subject is crepuscular (most active at dawn and
dusk), you likely won't get much traction at noon. If your subject is
nocturnal, grab a Red Bull and hope for the best.
2. Patience is a virtue, so arm yourself with it
Image: Jeff Mitchum
Wildlife and landscape photographer Jeff Mitchum
has had his work displayed on the walls of fine art museums, including
the Smithsonian Institute and Getty Museum. Mitchum knows just how
important the waiting game is in getting the shot. Consider the image
above, which Mitchum calls "The Man." Although it’s spectacular, it
didn’t come easy — Mitchum biked 160 miles across the Alaskan wilderness
to capture this photo. Says Mitchum, "In this shot, I was standing on
my toes looking over the willows when I saw the moose. I saw a hole and
then antlers growing out of it … and I knew he was huge. Looking just to
the west, there was an open location that evenly composed the largest
mountain in North America, Denali. And in a rare occurrence, Denali was
also out! After about five hours of waiting, this behemoth finally
walked out of his rut hole and passed over to the exact spot I had hoped
for."
Photographer Neil Paprocki, co-founder and scientific director of wildlife documentary/conservation organization Wild Lens
remarks, "Almost every time I try to go for a picture and run out of
patience, I don't get the shot. A few days ago, I laid on my stomach for
almost two hours at the edge of a pond, hoping a pair of red-throated
loons would come my way. They eventually did … but not before both of my
arms went numb."
3. Think outside the box when it comes to your vantage point
Paprocki,
currently in Alaska studying gyrfalcons (the world’s largest falcon
species), explains that the most obvious perspective isn’t always the
best perspective. "I've recently been doing a lot of shorebird
photography, and it's easy enough to walk around standing up and take a
photograph of a bird on the ground. However, you achieve a better
depth-of-field and intimacy level with birds on the ground if you get
down on your belly and see things from their perspective. This also
allows you to approach birds far closer than if you just tried walking
up to them."
Consider employing tech to attain an otherwise unachievable vantage. Will Burrard-Lucas,
a U.K.-based wildlife photographer, recognized the need to get closer
to his subjects and improvised. "In my photography, I aim to leverage
technology in order to gain a fresh perspective. For example, in 2009 I
created BeetleCam,
a remote-control camera buggy which I took to Africa and used to take
close-up, wide-angle photographs of dangerous wild animals such as
lions, elephants and leopards."
These buggies aren't the only gadgets Burrard-Lucas toys with to
obtain an interesting perspective. In fact, he launched a company early
this year, Camtraptions Ltd.,
for developing his own camera transport technology. "Recently I have
been experimenting a lot with drones, as I believe they have incredible
potential. Remote devices allow us to get our cameras closer to wildlife
with less disturbance — they can be quieter, smaller and less smelly
than a human holding a camera! At the moment, many of the existing
drones are far too noisy to be used with wildlife, so I have had to
design my own quiet drones."
4. … But don't sacrifice safety for perspective
Remember, wild animals are indeed wild — so don't get too
close. Burrard-Lucas once lost a camera to a lion. Thankfully, it was
attached to one of his prototype buggies ... not his neck.
Husband-wife nature photography team Mary Ann and Joe McDonald
know the unpredictability of animals firsthand. Joe was first-place
recipient in 2013’s BBC Wildlife Photography of the Year Competition,
Mammal Division, and the winning photo, "The Spat"
— an action image of jaguars sparring — really captures this. In this
photo, "The male approached the female thinking that she would be
receptive, but instead she turned on him, talons out and attacked and
pushed him right into the bushes backwards."
5. Aim for simple backgrounds — make negative space work for you
Says
Capra, "The most dramatic wildlife photos usually include a very
simple, and non-distracting background. The goal is to highlight your
subjects and make them stand out. Photos with cluttered and distracting
background cause your subject to get lost in the image/scene."
Sometimes, less can be better.
Mitchum emphasizes the importance of understanding space: “A fine art
photograph is comprised of a tremendous amount of space and chaos, and
it is our job to organize this into a fine art image. When you think
about it, there is a lot more space than material to work with. So, why
not make space and openness work for us? As photographers, we need to
discover a delicate arrangement of space so contrast of subject comes
alive. Contrast of space is critical because your subject needs to stand
out. Your subject needs to be the dominant element and wisely using
these open 'oxygenated vents' will allow your images to have the
separation needed to eliminate unwanted clutter."
6. A good photo needs to grab attention, and there are several ways to achieve this
Employ dramatic lighting. German wildlife photographer Gabriela Staebler
offers some advice for beginners looking to make dramatic lighting work
in their favor. Specifically, she details how to capture animal
silhouettes in the context of a sunset. “Most cameras have various
functions like 'low light,' or 'sunset' you can choose. The 10 to 20
minutes after sunset can produce a fantastic colored sky. If
you use a digital SLR-camera: Select your exposure reading based off the
brightest part of the picture. Focus on the animal and take the
picture."
Capture something that hasn't been seen before.
Burrard-Lucas: “This may mean concentrating on a specific animal and
photographing it in more depth than anyone else, or finding a new way of
photographing commonly seen creatures.” He lists his first BeetleCam
photoset as an example. "The resulting photographs were widely published
because the unique perspective really captured people’s attention."
Inject emotion. Capra recalls a successful,
emotionally-charged photo. “One of my favorite shots is one I took of a
penguin in a snowstorm while I was in Antarctica. I think it really just
captures a sense of the loneliness and harshness of Antarctica.”
Be intentional. Mitchum: “You can see in someone’s work
when they have intentionally captured an image. The patience and timing
didn't happen just because they opened their car door. Great images are
seen in advance, and then we back into that image through the technical
process.”
Observe patterns to capture the most interesting aspect of your subject’s behavior.
Ralph Clevenger is a photo instructor and an expert in eco and nature
photography — his images have been featured in publications such as Conde Nast Traveler and National Geographic.
Clevenger emphasizes the importance of timing in a photograph: “Waiting
for an animal to look up, to catch light in its eye, to turn its head,
to flare its wings — that’s the moment I wait for.”
Clevenger explains that timing can actually be planned by observing your subjects. He recalls a workshop he was leading with Brooks Institute
students in Alaska: “We came across some bald eagles catching fish near
Glacier Bay. We watched how they flew to shore to eat the fish and then
went back to catch more, circling around for the best angle to
approach. They repeated this pattern over and over. By following the
bird with my lens and timing the shot to when they made their turn, I
captured a much more interesting image then just an eagle flying.”
7. Practice makes perfect … and there are lots of ways to practice (even for city-dwellers!)
Have a backyard? Consider a bird feeder! Clevenger says,
“Some of my best hummingbird shots are captured by putting up a
hummingbird feeder near a natural looking branch, setting my camera on a
tripod with a remote release and just waiting for the hummingbird to
show up, all while sitting in the backyard.”Paprocki adds that for
photographers looking to omit human structures, supplying perching and
cover opportunities close to the feeder will also draw the birds. "If
you can provide a nice natural perch such as a tree or a bush near the
feeder, birds will often come there first before approaching the
feeder."
Those with gardens: Give macro photography a shot!
Clevenger recommends trying photography on a macro scale. “Macro, or
close-up, photography requires a lens that can focus very close and an
enormous amount of patience, but the result can be amazing. Your own
garden, no matter how small, is a miniature ecosystem."
Urban folks: Frequent your local parks. Although Neil
Paprocki typically shoots in remote locations, one of his favorite
photos was taken, ironically, in New York's Prospect Park. “I was
watching a group of ducks foraging on some open water near the edge of a
frozen pond when I saw a large group of gulls lift off from the ice. I
quickly realized they were responding to a pair of red-tailed hawks, one
of which had successfully taken a gull and was picking at it out on the
ice. The hawk attempted to fly to the shore with the gull in its
talons, but dropped it before it could make it there. I picked up
several decent photos of the hawk with the gull, but decided to stick
around and watch the hawks. After about an hour or so, the second hawk
took off across the ice and plowed into a juvenile northern shoveler on
the far side of the pond. After the successful hunt, the hawk dragged
the duck to shore and starting plucking feathers. I walked over to the
opposite side of the pond and approached the feeding hawk and slowly as I
could, using a large maple tree as a blind. Once I reached the tree
(roughly 50 feet from the hawk), I got down on my belly and slowly
inched my way out from behind it. I was able to fire off a series of
shots as the hawk picked away at the shoveler, achieving great depth of
field from my low perspective.”Burrard-Lucas mentions another advantage
of frequenting the same spots: The animals will eventually become
accustomed to your presence. “If you can, habituate the animals to your
presence. Then, they will start to ignore you and you will then be able
to capture interesting aspects of their behavior as they go about their
daily lives,” he suggests.
Honing your craft can take some time. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect.
8. Be respectful of your subjects — know when to call it off
Mary Ann McDonald recounts a time her group called off a shoot. “One
year in Tanzania, we found a leopard sleeping in a tree in the midday
heat. We pulled our vehicles off to the side in the shade of another
tree, to sit and wait for it to wake up and come down. While waiting,
some other vehicles showed up and pulled right up underneath the tree.
The leopard was ‘shy’ and immediately reacted to these people being too
close. It went up the tree and onto the top of the acacia tree and into
the hot sun. You could tell that it was agitated, and we felt terrible
that these people had violated its space and its ‘flight or fight’ zone.
So instead of contributing to its unease and its stress of now being in
the sun versus the shade, we went and talked to the vehicles, urging
them to leave, and we did the same so that the cat could come back down
into the shade and not be bothered.”
McDonald continues. “Through our photography we can educate people on
an animal’s behavior and habitat so that an animal is better understood
and hopefully protected.”
Burrard-Lucas
recalls a particularly fun project: “Earlier this year I traveled to
Botswana to photograph meerkats. The meerkats had no fear of me and
would use me as a lookout post so that they could spot any predators
that might be lurking in the long grass. I was lucky that my trip
coincided with the birth of some baby meerkats, and I was with them for
their first week above ground. They quickly became very comfortable
around me and they were painfully cute. It was a wonderful experience
and some of the resulting images are amongst my favorites ever taken!”
Image: Will Burrard-Lucas
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