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Wildlife and Adventure Photography
Stop Taking Random Wildlife Photos E2/4: How to stop guessing in the field
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Foreign. Last week we looked at how to transform random photographs, and the way we did that was to apply clarity so that the pictures that you're taking are intentional, not random. You're not just guessing and hoping for the best, but what happens once you get into the field. And that's what we're going to be looking at in today's episode. So please remember to like and subscribe and let's get straight into it. So intentional shooting is definitely helpful, but in real wildlife situations, things can happen very quickly. Things can move very quickly. So what do you look at first when everything is happening at once? And a lot of people do tend to freeze once they're in the field. And the reason they do that is that they're having to deal with a lot of variables and they're trying to solve everything simultaneously, which leads to overload. So what we're going to do in this episode is look at a process that will allow you to start to prioritize. So the kind of issues you're dealing with might be the background. You might have a very cluttered background, and you then got decide how you handle that. You might be thinking about your settings. Have you got the right aperture setting? Are you in the right mode? Suddenly it can all get a bit overwhelming. You're not sure what to do next. There could be movement happening, it might be that you're moving, it could be that your subject is moving, but you just don't know what's going to happen next. And that adds more pressure to deciding what settings you're going to use, how you're going to compose the shot. Composing the shot is really important as well, and that all becomes very rushed. And the final thing to think about is timing, because things can happen quite slowly in wildlife. Sometimes animals are not doing very much at all. Other times things can happen really fast. And then you've got to be on top of your game in order to grab those really elusive shots that can really make or break a trip, whether or not, depending on whether or not you get them. So the process that I want to talk about in the field is essentially putting together a sequence. And that sequence is subject background, lighting and timing. So we're going to go through each of these in a bit more detail. But the idea behind this is to provide simple get well, to give you simple steps that you take in order and that order does matter, and this will reduce and minimize any chaos that's going on. So the very first step is subject clarity. So here we come back to the question that's driving the whole photograph. What is it that makes the subject compelling? What is it that is really pushing you, if you like to take that photograph? What's the story that's going on? So is it to do with behavior? And this could be, if you're thinking of a predator, it could be a predator chasing down a prey animal, or it could be animals interacting with one another in some way. And I remember watching a pair of zebras. They were in part of a much larger group in. I think it was in Etosha, but can't quite remember, to be honest. And. But they were kind of interacting with one another in a very odd way that I wasn't quite sure meant that they were being aggressive towards one another or making up. And it was something that I hadn't seen before. And I know that zebras can be quite aggressive. This is one of the reasons why they're not domesticated, because they. They can be quite aggressive animals. So this compelled me, though, to take a series of photographs of just that interaction going on. So behavior might be one thing, posture might be another thing. It could just be the way they're posed. They could be on the alert looking for something. They could be hunting, various things going on. But there's something about the animal's posture that is inspiring you, I guess, to take that photograph. And then there's eye contact. And if you've got good eye contact with an animal, that can really help to create a very strong subject and a very strong image. So this leads us on to the next thing about subject clarity. And that's whether you do have a strong subject presence or if it's quite weak. So again, if you've got the back of an animal, generally that's not the most compelling image. If the animal is looking away, again, that's not ideal. And I've spoken about how I'll tend to shoot quite a lot of images when I first get out, because I get excited about being out and shooting animals again. But quickly after that, I get much, much more selective about what I'm actually photographing. And what I'm trying to do each time is to get a strong connection, strong subject presence. And that means that I really need to work on this, my subject clarity. So I'm looking at what it is about this situation that's making that instant with that animal stand out. It might be behavior, it might be posture. And eye contact is a big thing, as I've mentioned. So that's step number one. Be really make sure you've got your Subject really clear, and you've got a really good view and shot of your subject. So, second thing is background. And this is where a little bit of thought can make a big difference. So one of the problems we often have when we're shooting wildlife is that we end up with a background that's quite cluttered. So that could be a lot of branches, it could be bushes, it could be things. And this could also be foreground. So you've got foreground and background elements that are very distracting when you're trying to look at the subject. So what can you do about it now? It may be that you can wait, because you might. Let's say, for example, you've seen three or four tigers. They're on the edge of a forest, but they're on the edge of the wooded area and there's an open area beyond and they seem to be walking towards that. So that might be one of those situations where you wait for them to get to the new position with a cleaner background and you start shooting there. I would normally grab what I think of as a contingency shot. So I've got some shot of them, but then I will make the main shot. If they're going to a better background, then I'll definitely go for that. So clutter is one thing. The only other thing you can do, really, if you've got a lot of clutter in the image, is to use either crop in as tight, zoom in as close as possible so that the subject is filling the frame a lot more, so that cluttered background becomes a smaller component of the. The overall image, or just use depth of field to defocus it as much as you can. And that applies to foreground and background. So the less focused they are, the less sharp they are, the less they'll conflict with the subject. So these are just things to think about and possible options that you have. Now, other things that create conflict with the background. It could be bright background or bright elements in points of interest within the. Within the image, or you might have merging elements. So basically what I'm talking about here is, is anything in the image that competes with the main subject. So it's fine to have a couple of points of interest. So an example of that would be, I got a shot in, I think, South Africa. It was early in the morning. We'd been out for actually a sunrise shot, and we were heading back and we passed the bush and there were a couple of lions just sat there and they were watching a group of wildebeest and separate from the main group, there was a young builder beast just sort of prancing past where these lines were. It maybe was 200 meters, 1 to 200 meters away. It wasn't a huge distance away. And it was just blissfully unaware that these lines were there. As it turned out, the lines didn't do anything. But this is the kind of situation where you can definitely have two points of interest in the photograph. So. And that's telling a whole story or implying a story. So when you're looking at your subject, pay a lot of attention to the background and the foreground as well. And remember that background problems are easier to prevent than to fix. Because if you've taken a shot and everything's very sharp and everything's conflicting, that's a lot of work in post to try and get rid of that. And. And I never use post processing that way. So it is much, much easier to find ways to hopefully set the shot up so you've got a clean background, or if that's not happening, at least use depth of field to remove as many of those competing elements as you can. So that is background. So we've spoken about subject clarity, we've spoken about background. We then got light. So light obviously is really important because without it, we don't have much of a photograph. Too much. We've got a photograph that is all the details kind of removed from it. So light is very important. And the key things that we're looking at here are direction and contrast, and they in turn define the mood of the image. So for direction, if the light is directly behind you, that can flatten aspects of the animals. So, for example, the face or maybe muscle contours, things like that, because from where you are, where you're positioned with the camera, everything's evenly lit and there's probably a little, not much in the way of shadow that you can see. So, and I. The ideal light is probably coming from the side in some way, because what it's starting to do, as there are highlights in the animal's body, it could be to do with its muscles, it might be to do with its face, but you get these small shadows created and they make that whole image look much more three dimensional. And that's a really important thing. Now, the other way to use light direction is when you're shooting into the light and your subject is between you and the light. So in other words, the subject is backlit. Again, this is something generally I found I can experiment with this in post processing because sometimes I want the actual animal to Be very dark and pretty much in silhouette. And other times I want to bring out some of the detail. So, for example, I remember kudu I shot at sunset. And the nice thing about the backlit, more silhouette shot was you could clearly see all of the hairs on the profile of the animal. So I kind of like that. However, kudu have quite striking marks on their flanks. They have lines on their flanks which help you to identify individuals. And I also did a version of that image where those markings were very. Were much more obvious. So direction of the light is really important. So it's important to first of all assess where the light's coming from. If it's not ideal for you, then if you're able to move, then move. If you're not, maybe the light will change. If the sun's moving in the sky, that might change the situation enough to get a little bit of highlights going on and shadow going on. But it is one of those things that a lot of photographers will tend to ignore if they're under pressure because they just want to get the shot. And then you get these really ordinary shots that are very hard to. If you've got a. If you've got very flat light, if the light's directly behind you and it's quite strong, it's really hard to get anything useful out of those shots because you're trying to pull something out of that original image that isn't really there to pull out. So you really want that sideways light or backlighting or at least light that isn't so strong. Now, the other thing I mentioned was mood, and this is another important aspect, and it's something I talk about a lot more in. Well, in my full course, Discovering DSLR and Mirrorless Photography, I talk about it in some of the short courses that I run. But if you think about it, the photographs that mean the most to you, and I'm going to suggest the photographs that you really like, whether they're your own or somebody else's, the reason that you like them or you feel a greater connection with them is that there is an emotional aspect to that shot. They provoked an emotion in you. They have a certain mood, perhaps. And if you. One of the key things, one of the things that separates really good photographers from the. The pack, if you like, is that really good photographers know how to use light to create a. Create mood, create emotional impact. So if something is quite dark, that can produce possibly a more melancholy feel to it. It could be a more thoughtful, it could be a threatening feel. If it's Brighter, it might be more lively, particularly if there's a lot of color. So emotional impact in itself is, is another subject, but it is something to at least be aware of. And particularly if you've got a, a strong connection with your subject, if you've got, if your subject has strong presence in the image, then you can work with lighting, certainly when you're shooting and also in post to just really bring out the emotional connection with that particular subject. So that was the third step. That's light. And the fourth one is timing. So often the thing that makes the difference between an average photograph and a strong one is timing. So you can have a shot that is very sharp, it's correctly exposed, but there's not much going on, or there's nothing really, really interesting going on. There's nothing going on that inspires anybody looking at that image. So this comes down to observing what's going on with the animal or animals you're looking at. It also helps if you've done some research so you know the kind of behaviors, because these are generally behavior related or they might not be, but on the whole they generally are. So if you've done your research and you know the kind of behaviors and maybe times of day, possibly times of year even that you can expect, then you're on the lookout for them. And one of the things you'll notice with professional wildlife photographers is when they get to a location they're not and they found some animals, they don't immediately have the camera up to their face. What they're doing is having a good look around. And what they're looking at are the things I'm telling you about here. So they're looking at backgrounds, they're looking at lighting, but they're looking at what the animals are doing and making decisions about when to take a shot. So, for example, a bird on a branch, it might sit there for a while, but it might also move. And generally, once you started observing birds, you'll notice that there's a little tell they give when they're about to lift up, you know, fly off the branch. So this is the kind of thing that when you teach yourself those aspects, how that particular animal behaves, it helps you and to anticipate situations rather than just guess or just blast away. So another one would be humpback whales, which are photographed a lot. And if I want to get a humpback whale fluking up, what I do know is that generally humpback whales, when they're swimming normally, will come up to the surface and they will take three breaths. So basically they'll break the surface three times and blow as they're breaking the surface. Then they'll do a shallow dive under the water, then come up again, generally a few seconds later as you're following them. But after that third breath, they're taking a deeper breath and then they dive down. So that's when they go down. And they might be down several minutes, but often if they start to arch their back more, it means the tail fluke is likely to come up out of the water. And that can be a really good shot. And if you think about it, it's a bit like us swimming in a very shallow way initially. And then we decide to sort of duck dive, so we push our head down, but what happens is our feet tend to come up, and that's what happens with whales. So once you understand that as a swimming pattern, you're just looking at how an animal is swimming if you get to spend a bit of time with it. Some whales will tend to fluke up on. Most times they're getting breath at the surface. Other times it might be every two or three times. Then they'll fluke up and go down. They might not like having a boat near them. I mean, there's distances you have to keep and all that. But some whales really don't like it. So they may well fluke up as they go down a bit deeper, and then they'll change direction to get away from the boat. Because once they're down, you're having to just, you know, track along the line they were. They'd been swimming. So things like this, once you've understand a little bit more about your subject and the kind of behaviors that they exhibit and how to follow them, that really helps with your anticipation in getting the kind of shot that you. You want to come away with. So just to talk through this, you're in a situation, and first of all, when you arrive somewhere, the very first thing I tend to do is just make sure that the settings I've got are about right. So I generally use aperture priority. So I'll take a shot and make sure that exposure looks good. I'm shooting at the kind of shutter speed I think I might need for the kind of situation I'm in. So, and the rule here is if you're. If you're in thousandths of a second, you're going to freeze the action. If you're in hundreds, if your subject isn't moving or not moving very much, then that's quite comfortable to shoot. Them that way. And if you go lower than that, then you get these more ethereal shots, which you may or may not want in a wildlife situation. But what I'm looking at, I'm just making sure I've got a good exposure. The settings I've got working pretty much for the light I have. So if I'm in forest or if I'm in savannah, I'm not overexposing, I'm not underexposing. I mean, in the, in the ballpark. I'm also looking at the kind of background. So if, if I think an animal is there. So for example a tiger. Sometimes tigers will walk through undergrowth and maybe cross roads or things like that. So what I'm doing is looking at backgrounds and I'll probably go for a shot as a tiger showing itself. Because you. They often on trips where there are tide, you don't see them that often. But I'm also looking, if they do walk across a roadway, for example, where's a great place to grab a shot? Because it might be when they're actually on the road itself. Because if it's a sort of sand type road, that might be a more useful background than forest. But you've got to work with what you've got. But I'm just working that out. I'm just looking at possible scenarios so that I'm ready for them now. The other thing I'm looking at is light and how much is it changing as I pan from imagining the tiger coming out of forest where it might be darker, onto a more open road where there's more light. How does that light work? Where is it coming from? What's the kind of shadows I'm likely to get on the animal, that kind of thing. How does that impact my shutter speed? So these are just things I'll run through quickly and just do a quick check so that assuming the animal does appear, I'm ready to go. So what I'm then doing once I see the animal is going through the process that I've just described. So I'm looking at subject, I'm looking at the animal, I'm looking at how I'm framing it. I've already made some decisions about background. So if it's really cluttered background, I might have already set quite a narrow depth of field to get it out of focus. Or I might design if the animal is close enough, zoom in really as tight as I can, I'm looking. I've already decided how I'm likely to use the light. So I'll just run with that. And then I'm just watching what the animal's doing. Now, in this instance, probably just walking, but it might stop. Sometimes they will scent mark tree, things like that. So I'm just ready to go, whatever happens. So that basically is the sequence. The point about it is that there are distinct things to do. Some of them like setting shutter speed, depth, feel, that kind of thing. You can sort of have fully set or partially set before you even see the animal. So out of all that long checklist of things that you could potentially be changing or looking at or checking, there's a good number of them you can do before an animal is in sight. So that takes the load off a bit. And it means that when the animal does appear, you're fine tuning what you've already got. And it means that you've got fewer things to think about in that situation. You can concentrate more on composition, making sure you've got eyes in particular very sharp, but you're pretty much ready to go. So the point about this process is that it gives you a bit of structure. However, where it's likely to break down is if you do panic, if you let that worry of missing the shot altogether come in, then once, once your panic is all over. So stay, stay cool. If the situation's difficult, if the conditions are difficult, then that can make it harder to get a correct exposure or get a good shot of the animal or whatever it might be. So this will come with practice. And if this is your first time in those kind of conditions, it may be that you don't get a good shot. I mean, that's the bottom line of it. But hopefully you can learn from that process. And this is, to me, the. The core of good photography. You, you're constantly learning. There's a. I think it was Anslennan's, I'm not sure. So it might be Cartier. I can't remember. Someone said your first 10,000 pictures are your worst. So that's the point of it. It's to do as much practice as you can before you go and maybe practice in different types of conditions. But if it doesn't go right, then at least learn from the situation. The other point where this can break down is if you get distracted. So I've definitely had that. I was talking to somebody in Mr. Double Breach 2 Wales, which only happened once, so I wasn't very happy situation. When you're tired, this also can slow you down. So the point about it is the idea of having the process is to give you a little bit of structure, and it doesn't guarantee you're going to get strong photographs, but it does increase your chances of getting strong photographs. And it gives you. Once you've got clear steps like that, you can review them periodically to make sure that they're still making sense, or if you fine tune them a little bit, what are you doing and does that still work? So I'm a big believer in having a general process. I'm quite bad at following really detailed stuff, so it needs to be pretty general. And most of what I do now I do pretty much automatically. It's simply because I've done it thousands of times. And this is the bottom line. Just practice as much as you can with as many different subjects as you can that are close to where you're going and that will really set you up. So that has helped, I hope, in reducing the amount of guessing you're doing in the field by having some structure. You're in a much better position now to go out there to apply what we spoke about last week, where we've moved from randomness to clarity. And having got some clarity, we're now breaking this down into a simple field process that you can use to give you the best chance of getting great wildlife photos. And I've also spoken about where this can potentially break down. So that is what I was aiming to cover in this particular episode. However, in episode three, I'm going to deal with a problem that this raises, which is the almost good trap. So you can have technically solid images, but they're really emotionally weak. So this is what I spoke about before. You can have photographs that they're correctly exposed. They're not. They're very sharp, but there's just something missing. And I remember an animal photograph, but I was doing a photo walk with a group of people in Sydney and it was getting to dusk and a bunch of runners came past us. And one of the people on the walk, they turned around and took a photograph of the runners as they were running away from us. And when I looked at it, yeah, it was. Shutter speed was too slow, really. They were all a bit blurry. But there was one runner who, at the moment, excuse me, that shot was taken, she was looking back at the photographer and everybody else. It was backs of heads and she wasn't that sharp either. There was still movement in it. But it was just such a great shot because there was an emotional connection to it. So this is where good photography goes beyond being technically correct. And in fact, to be honest with you, you can have great photographs that are not technically correct at all. So you can end up with clean images that are very boring. You can have sharp images that are quite cluttered and you can have dramatic images, but they're very confused because it's. Again, there's too many things in there. So what we're going to do in episode three, which comes out on Friday, is to look at the photographs that almost work, because these can be the hardest photographs to understand. And that's what I want to really go through with you in the next episode so that you can understand maybe where things are going wrong for you. And then obviously once you understand it, you can work on how to correct it. So I hope you found that useful. Yeah. Practice. Maybe. Maybe if you've been able to drop this down and it's useful to you, please do. I'm not a. Like I say, I'm not a big one for structure, but I think a broad, like scaffolding almost, it can. It's there to hold you up, not to restrict you. So use it to the extent that you're comfortable with. But I do recommend you practice if you are going away on a trip, really do your research because that can make a massive difference to the results you get. That's it from me. I'll speak to you next time. Please remember to like and subscribe. Bye for now. Thank you for listening. Now, just before I go, surprisingly, I'm going to ask if you could like and subscribe because a lot of people don't and it really makes difference. So please do that if you can. Now, I have a few things going on. There are free webinars every month at the moment, short courses running. So please take a look at the website www.ge.ography and you'll see what's happening. As I say, there are a few things going on and hopefully something that will float your boat. So thanks for listening to the podcast. Have a great day. I'll speak to you next time. Bye for now.