I’m not a hunter, but I imagine wildlife photography is a lot like hunting. You wear neutral-colored clothing, spend a lot of time tracking wildlife in the bush, get dirty, wait a lot, and you’d better have some decent aim or else you waste a bunch of shots.
On my most recent bear photography trip to the Katmai wilderness in Alaska, there was a lot of downtime between bear sightings. Sometimes the boat ride into bear territories was 1.5 hours long. In the meantime, however, there was no shortage of wildlife photography! Bald eagles, osprey, sockeye salmon, and Alaskan wildflowers were common sightings and welcome diversions to the waiting. I actually found that photographing birds was so much fun, that we spent an entire day at a bald eagle nest just watching and waiting. A particular pair of eagles kept us waiting for nearly an hour as the perched in the sun… finally when we put our cameras down to give our arms a rest, they decided to take off in their glorious flight… they probably enjoyed this game as much as we did!
American Bald Eagles, Alaska
Fireweed
The first and most important thing I learned about wildlife and nature photography is that it’s worth getting to know your subject. This will help create the opportunity for the shot, help you find the most common locations for your subject, as well as their behavior patterns and best angles. If all your shots are of a bear’s rear end or a bird flying off into the distance away from you, chances are you are approaching them to quickly or too closely. Their comfort level will reflect in the images. This is not only important for the great wildlife shots, but also important for the general well-being of the wildlife. Often, birds have to conserve their energy to hunt and survive, and cannot waste that precious energy flying away from people who are stalking them and chasing them away from their hunting or nesting grounds. So consider the well-being of your subjects and it’ll show in the images!
Juvenile bald eagle
Osprey, hunting
For me, I find that shooting hand held worked better than shooting with a tripod. Before you all go tsk-tsking me, just hear me out! If I know my subject will be staying in a small contained area, obviously the tripod is the better choice. However, in the wild, animals don’t stay in viewfinders or boxes! When the eagles took off in flight, I found it was so much easier to track with my body rather than with a tripod, and this resulted in sharper images. Sometimes I wanted to get down at ground level to get a different perspective of the bears, and I could maneuver my body much faster than I could my tripod. Sometimes the bears would walk right past us and I wanted to back up to give them room and actually fit them in my 100-400mm lens; it was much easier to scoot myself backwards than awkwardly fumble with a tripod in my waders and 5 layers of clothing. This is not to say I shot without support- often times I braced my left elbow on my left thigh while kneeling, especially when shooting from the boat. I also had a 500mm lens with me which was literally a bear to carry around and maneuver (8.5 pounds!); I did benefit from a tripod in this situation but missed out on many shots as sometimes I could not maneuver fast enough to catch the charging bears or swooping osprey.
Taken from the boat, no tripod
Camp Dog Winston, practicing my non-tripod moments
Tripod mandatory, low-light at dawn, long exposure
I do not typically consider myself a technical photographer, but in wildlife photography, sharp, focused images are paramount- I suppose it is akin to having good aim in hunting. For flying birds, I liked to have a shutter speed of at least 1/1600, but lighting conditions did not always comply (birds are most active in the early morning and late afternoon when the sun tends to be lower). For the most part, I tried to aim for their eye when shooting; this generally gave me good results and more of the bird ended up being in focus in the end. Most of you will know what I’m talking about – when you get that gorgeous, perfectly timed, sharp bird image, it makes all that waiting and planning worthwhile. In my opinion, “getting that image” is far more difficult than spraying a shotgun full of birdshot at a group of ducks. Photographing birds is humbling and the more I try it, the more I realize there is to learn. Any bird photographers out there willing to share your favorite websites, or a tip or two? Maybe I’ll devote another blog to the bird photography alone!
Takeoff
Landing
As we were leaving the wilderness, hunters were flying into the region to scour the land for moose, heralding the beginning of moose-hunting season. Just as the hunters were returning to camp with their trophy heads (I will leave my personal opinion of hunting out of this!), we returned to camp with cameras in-hand, excitedly downloading our daily images into our cameras and backup drives. Wildlife photography is a lot less bloody than hunting, and instead of cleaning your kills, you just have to clean your lenses. True, you don’t get to eat your photographs, but the images are trophies nonetheless and great for wall mounting- not to mention the peace and exhilaration that comes with being outside in nature. Happy shooting!
Success- Alaskan brown bear with sockeye
Trip planning: There are many ways to get to the Katmai wilderness and numerous outfitters that do photography tours. If you are not experienced in the area, the best way to go is with a guide. We used www.bearguidealaska.com and flew in from Anchorage, Alaska into King Salmon airport. Bring clothing in layers and insect repellent. Rain showers can come on quickly and unexpectedly, so waterproof packs or drybags are recommended for your equipment. Also refer to my previous post for other lessons I learned on this trip.