Harmer - Improve Your Wildlife Photography

IMPROVE YOUR WILDLIFEPHOTOGRAPHY

By Jim Harmer

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Jim Harmer and Smashwords

Improve Your Wildlife Photography

Copyright 2010 Jim Harmer. All rightsreserved

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Dear Reader,

This book is targeted to beginning andintermediate wildlife photographers who want to increase the dramaand beauty of their wildlife images. While some of the chapters inthis book touch on subjects such as gear and camera settings, themain thrust of this book is technique.

Wildlife photography is beautiful because itoften places me in locations that only God has touchedno telephonepoles, no cars, no laptops, and definitely no Twitter. As youcapture the lives of animals at the speed of 1/1000th ofa second, remember the Creator of the beautiful animals yourecord.

Regards,

Jim Harmer

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Almost universally, photographers make thesame mistake in their wildlife photography. The mistake is takingwildlife photos the same as one would take a portrait of a person.The result of this error is what I call the cheap studio effect.I call it that because of the dull and boring wallet-sized imagesevery time I go to a department-store studio and get photographedon cheesy blue backgrounds.

In wildlife photography, the cheap studioeffect can be seen where a photographer takes a boring headshot ofan animal without including any of the background. While this typeof shot may look fine on an advertisement for a zoo, it does notimpact the viewer of the photograph. For a wildlife photo to standout from the crowd, it must reach out and grab the viewer by theeyeballs and demand attention to the drama in the photograph. Thefollowing sub-topics will help you to advance your

One key to any successful wildlife photo isthe animals eye. Without exception, the eye must be in perfectfocus. The most compelling eyes usually have catch-lights in them.Catch-lights are the bright spots of light that appear on shinyobjects when illuminated. Some refer to the effect of catch-lightson an animals eye as specular highlights.

So you agree that the eyes are important, butwhy do photographers go to such great lengths to get specularhighlights in the animals eyes? The answer is that photos are 2dand animals are 3d. Photographers must do all they can to giveobjects depth and the feeling of shape, and the specular highlightdoes exactly that. When viewing a flat object like a photo, ourbrains take in visual cues that may convey that the object isactually three dimensional. Specular highlights provide a strongvisual cue for the shape of an object and its location relative tolight source.

Specular highlights often appear naturallywhen the ambient light in a scene hits the eyes of an animal, butoften the animal will be positioned with its back to the lightsource. To achieve catch-lights in an animal not facing the lightsource (generally the sun), the answer is flash photography. Flashphotography will be discussed in a later chapter.

Aside from this technical consideration,consider the position of the animal. Many animal shots look greatwhen the animal is looking away from the camera; however, capturingan image of an animal as both eyes stare squarely into the lenswill undoubtedly grab the attention of the viewer.

To apply this principle of the two-eyed staredown to increase the drama of a photo, shoot the animal for a whileand get as many photos as you want. When you feel like youvecaptured the animal in its natural habitat, make the animal awareof your presence. Stand up from your hiding place, wave your arms,etc. When a photographer does this, most species will notimmediately sprint away. Most animals respond to this suddenstimulus by quickly staring directly at the motion for a minutebefore running or flying away. By doing this, you get theenvironmental portraits of the animal and then a second look at theanimal in a more dramatic pose. Use care when applying thistechnique to not disturb the animal nor put yourself in danger ifapproaching a dangerous animal.

Nothing screams zoo photography likewildlife photography taken from standing height looking down on ananimal on the ground. There is no drama in this angle because it isthe angle that we are used to seeing wildlife from.

Portrait photographers understand shootingangles better than any other type of photographer. Portraitphotographers commonly get low to the ground and shoot up toward asubject in order to give them power and make them seem large. Forexample, if shooting a CEO in front of the large corporate office,any portrait photographer with have a brain would instinctively geton the ground and shoot up toward the CEO to give him power.Conversely, shooting down on a subject makes it seem small,feminine, and dainty. Taking this lesson from portraitphotographers, youll do well to consider whether you want to givethe animal power by getting low to the ground, or taking away powerfrom the animal by shooting from above it. In most situations,wildlife photography will look best when shooting from a low angletoward the wildlife.

The importance of shooting from a low angleis lessened as the subject-to-lens distance narrows. For example,if shooting from only a few feet away from an egret, the low anglewill be apparent in the photo. If shooting the same egret from 100feet away, the importance of the angle is lessened.

Images of animals increase in drama when thesurroundings of the animal are considered. A photo of a desert witha deep black storm approaching in the distance is far more dramaticand impactful than the same scene on a sunny day. Use the drama inthe background to highlight the dramatic surroundings of thewildlife you photograph. While many photographers tend to stay homeon rainy, snowy, or otherwise unpleasant days, the experiencedwildlife photographer will seize the opportunity and capturebeautiful dramatic images of wildlife in the elements.