Animal Photography: 3-point combo

Follow these Tips to Perfect animal photography:  3-point combo #Wild5PawPrint

At Wild 5 Adventures there is an abundance of wildlife that would be paradise for professional or amateur photographers alike!

The content-technicals dichotomy

This is an interesting one. Does great content trump a technically great image with average content every time? It may be different where you live, but I am relating this one particularly to the African safari experience. Every tourist wants to see the “Big 5” or at least a lion. If you’ve ever spent time around wild lions in the daytime, you will know they are actually shoddy models for photography. They sleep up to 20 hours per day. Conversely I have had great photo opportunities from Impala, who are the most common ungulate you come across down here in the bush. My advice to the discerning photographer would be to look for great opportunities regardless of species when the light is good!

The jury is still out on this one. The awesome sightings like lions won’t always provide the awesome images. Learn to see the potential in the mundane to create amazing photographic moments, and go out and make good images. The obvious ideal is for an image with great content in great light shot with just the right settings – the Utopia shot that most of us will never get right.

Patience isn’t a virtue…it’s a necessity

As a wildlife photographer, your images are predicated on the fact that things in nature are unpredictable. Anything can happen at any time…but most things happen only rarely, or at the very least, they rarely coincide with the exact time that you are in that specific spot. It is therefore imperative that you become patient…very patient. Now, I catch myself out frequently enough being very impatient out in the field. It’s something you constantly have to graft at. Essentially it’s almost a culmination of many of the things we’ve discussed so far. Observing your subjects, getting to know their behavioral patterns, requires a great deal of patience. Often the implications are that you need to return to the same spot for days before things start to happen…and even then you run the risk of nothing happening and having wasted your time.

Be there & enjoy it

By this I don’t just mean you need to physically show up and you need to be at the right place at the right time – of course that applies – but I actually mean you need to be in the moment and don’t get caught up so much with the technical issues and your settings that you don’t take in the moments you are witnessing while out photographing birds and wildlife. We need to be mindful of the privilege of spending time in nature and being in places where the hand of man hasn’t quite exerted its full force yet. Maybe for you it’s just the most isolated spot in your local park where you can sit and observe and photograph squirrels and birds, or maybe it’s facing a wild Elephant in a game reserve. Regardless, enjoy what you are doing! Have fun doing it! What does it help us to spend so much time on this amazing hobby-cum-art form if we are not enjoying the time spent?

I hope these tips will stand you in good stead out there in the field. They have for me. Good light and good sightings to you all!

For more information on our available activities, please contact us www.wild5adventures.co.za | (082) 566-7424 | info@wild5adventures.co.za

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Source: http://digital-photography-school.com/10-tips-for-improving-your-wildlife-photography/