National Audubon Society Guide To Nature Photography

Part Three: Adventures with wildlife


Part three of the book focuses on wildlife and how to shoot animals, which might be pretty hard sometimes.When shooting wildlife you have to find animals that don't mind being near you. Those are divided into two groups, the first one are animals that are not afraid of humans because we never hunt them. We leave them alone because we don't want to eat them and they exist in environments where almost no humans exist. The other group is made up of animals that have learned that humans won't hurt them, like in wildlife parks and preserves. Before going to take photos of animals make sure to study the animal a little bit to know where they exist mainly, what their behavior is so that you don't get surprised and so that you can catch the behavior in it's natural appearance.

When approaching an animal stay low and move slowly when the animal is not looking at you and remember to keep the distance so the animal doesn't feel threatened.
Also make sure that the animal has an escape route, don't trap them in. To get actual good pictures of animals, a lot of patience is needed. You might have to wait for a long time for the shot you want.

When you want a shot in action patience is once again needed. Remember that action shots are quick and you might not have time to change settings but editing is possible later so there's no need to worry to much about it. Autofocus is recommended because it can be hard to get things in focus while animals are moving. But for closeup magnifications that show detail in the eyes, a manual fine-tne in order be needed to bring the feature into sharp focus.

So how big should the subject be in the frame? It's kind of up to the person to decide and the animals behavior is also to consider when deciding this. A rule of thumb for this is using enough lens power to show clear detail in the eyes of the animal, a clearly defined iris is the ideal. But once again, it depends on what's going on and how many animals are in the picture. When photographing a group it's good to have one leading subject and put the others in where their roles are most important  and play a role to the subject.

Something you can do with wildlife portraits is to set up the picture in three planes: a foreground, a midground and a background and with each layer to support the main subject. The subject is in the midground in order to have most focus on it. The light can make the picture so much more interesting. Using front light in the early morning or late in the afternoon are usually most productive. During mid-day the sun is so high so it's hard to get a good light on the subject. Using the light correctly will come with practice and you'll feel comfortable with what light works for different situations, after a while.