The Wildlife Photography Apprentice
A Wildlife Photography Blog with information about wildlife photoraphy techniques, locations and subjects based out of West Texas.
Wildlife photography is a rewarding and exciting hobby, but locating wildlife can be a challenging task. Finding the right location and knowing when and where to look for wildlife is key to capturing stunning images. In this article, we will discuss some things you can do to locate wildlife to photograph in their natural settings.
Keeping your ducks in a row is an old expression for sure but some expressions remain useful and are timeless. Photographing wildlife is complex and involves a process with many individual steps or “ducks” to keep in sequence if you want to achieve the best outcome. Most people who haven’t tried wildlife photography before think you just walk out the front door, take a photo of an animal, and put it online, perhaps because these days with smartphones that’s exactly how most photographs are taken. Those of us who photograph wildlife regularly for business or pleasure know it’s a bit more complicated than that. To produce your average random wildlife photo you could just depend on getting lucky once in a while but to produce good quality wildlife photos consistently, they have to be preceded by a significant amount of study and preparation, as well as a multistep post-processing routine. Photographing Ducks is fun and is a good way to illustrate the multiple steps that are involved. Lets’ take a look at how I like to keep my ducks in a row while photographing ducks.
When I was a kid, we used to play touch football in the street. Because there wasn’t an offensive line, we had to count ten seconds out loud before we could rush the quarterback. When we counted, we would use Mississippis because supposedly it takes one second to say “One Mississippi”. Say it ten times and you could rush the quarterback. I was out recently looking for wildlife to photograph when I came across several beautiful raptors that caused me to harken back to those days. I found myself counting each of the several birds circling overhead in Mississippis as if I were a kid on the football field. One Mississippi Kite, Two Mississippi Kites, and so on.
If you have ever been to West Texas then you know there really isn’t much to look at. You can literally drive a hundred miles and not change elevation more than 10 feet. For the most part, it’s dry and arid. The average yearly rainfall is about 14 inches and not a lot can grow in those conditions. Every once in a while though you’re lucky and you find an oasis in the desert.
The sun was due to rise at about 6:00 am the next day, so I was up early to position myself. Hidden at the base of a large tree at the edge of the field, I sat listening to the sounds of the morning as sunrise approached. I adjusted my ISO to achieve an acceptable shutter speed in the low light conditions, and I waited. It wasn’t too long before I heard the noise of large animals moving through the brush down by the stream. Soon a number of what are the largest members of my field ecosystem began to wander into the pasture. A small herd of elk.
