Wild Life Photography
About Me!
I am Jessica Nelson and I have been a photographer for 12 years. I live in central Maryland with my husband of 20 years and my three kids, Zachary (17), Eliza (14) and Violet (12). I was always interested in photography even as a child but I didn’t get serious about it until my youngest was born. I bought my first DSLR and set off to be a better child photographer so I wouldn’t miss any fleeting moments of my children’s baby and toddler years. I gradually took on a client or two and realized pretty quickly that human shooting was definitely not my strong suit. I’ve had a passion for animals and wildlife, especially birds, for as long as I can remember and I decided about 5 years ago to totally switch my focus from people shooting to wildlife and nature shooting.
I’ve loved every minute of being a wildlife and nature photographer and I strive to capture as much of our natural world as I can. I share all of my work on my wildlife and nature IG account which is @gagglephotog.
Why Wildlife?
I’m an animal lover. I am shy and introverted. I always have been. My photography is a way for me to express those emotions artistically through the subjects that I find the deepest connection to. For most, those are humans, but for me, someone who thrives on being alone with nature, I feel a strong bond with the animals. Learning about them and how to best photograph them has been an obsession over these years.
Getting Started
Animals are everywhere. Even when you don’t think there are any around, you are probably just not looking hard enough. Being a good birder takes a lot of observation and patience. However, it also takes some good resources. What I mean by that is, it is nearly impossible to know every bird species, their coloring, their songs because there are just too many. But having good resources at your fingertips definitely gives you an edge on finding the animals you want to locate and being able to capture them.
Get a good desk reference for birds. Use some phone apps to help you identify them and join local FB or in person birding or wildlife groups. Learn the animals habits and when they come to eat and when they are quiet. Why is this all important? Learning their habits can become a key element in being able to properly capture them. Where do they eat? Where do they nest? What do they sound like? All of these components help you not only be able to identify them but also being able to photograph them.
Ethics and Safety
I am a nature lover and always have been as long as I can remember. But observing from afar is the best thing for both wild animals and humans alike. It is one thing to put up a bird feeder and watch the songbirds and woodpeckers come and enjoy a meal. Feeding or baiting wild animals, especially predatory ones, is a practice that should never be done. Wildlife conservationists who are also photographers can’t stress enough the importance of leaving wild animals alone to fend for themselves. Feeding them just to get a perfect shot is very harmful because it teaches wild animals to associate food with humans. There are many humans who seek out these animals for malice and teaching them to trust humans can lead to their demise. Plus getting too close to any wild animal is not advisable. Most of the time they are more scared of us than we are of them but you never know how they will react. So, that said, just don’t feel the wild animals.
Best Gear for Wildlife Photography
My main camera and lens for 99% of my wildlife work is a Canon 7DMII and a Sigma 150-600. I shoot specifically with a fast (10 FPS) crop sensor camera so that I have a little more reach to my subjects. Many cameras, both DSLRs and Mirrorless can shoot in burst-mode and have high FPS and those would be the best to use for wildlife. Teleconverters sit between your camera and your lens to give your lens more reach. Ultimately when I use it on my 600mm, I get 860mm out of the lens. While that sounds like a dream scenario, using a teleconverter does make your auto-focusing a little harder (on some cameras, such as mine, only the center focal point is available) and you will lose at least 1 f/stop of light. Therefore, I only use it when I am shooting in either bright mid-day sun or when I am not shooting into the dark woods. I do not shoot often with either a tripod or monopod. I don’t like the limitations they give me when I want to move my lens quickly to scan the trees. However, many wildlife photographers do use them.
Settings
Proper exposure starts with the triangle: ISO/Shutter Speed/ Aperture. With wildlife shooting the most important element is shutter speed. Most of the time you will want a SS that is fairly high, therefore, depending on your light situation, you may need to shoot at a higher ISO to maintain a good exposure. Wildlife shooting can be a challenge because it is done all outside in natural light. That light can change very quickly and we need to be able to compensate with our settings. I like to keep my SS at 1/1000 or higher when I am out shooting in the field hand-holding my camera and lens. I find that a slower SS than 1/800 will give me camera shake especially holding a long telephoto. Plus I want to capture as much of the moving animal in focus as I can. If my light allows, I like to go even higher than 1/1000. Burst mode, or hyperdrive, is also something I use very often. Birds move very fast. Not only do you need a high shutter speed but you need to shoot quickly. I’m not saying take 100 photos in a minute of the same bird (that would be a nightmare to cull) but I always take at least 2-4 photos at a time in succession before I stop, recompose and take 2-4 more. The reason is because in that short amount of time, a bird can change their position 3 or 4 times, especially move their heads. You will want to give yourself a few choices of shots.
This series was taking in under 2 minutes. Now I admit I was super lucky to have seen a Baltimore Oriole out in an open spot for around 2 minutes but as you can see in that short time frame, he moves around a lot. As does the foliage around him on a slightly windy day. I took a few bursts first and then recomposed and took a few more. Ultimately I wound up with a couple I liked and a few that I wouldn’t share, such as the ones of him preening his back feathers. But since it was an oriole and I so rarely get to see them, I kept most of the good ones for prosperity.
Finding Subjects to Shoot
So now that you have some ideas on how to use your camera for wildlife shooting, where do you go about finding subjects. Well, earlier I talked about observation and patience. Wildlife photography takes a lot of that. One of the easiest ways to get some new subjects to come to you is to feed them in your yard, if you are allowed. Put up bird feeders. That is the best way to get some bird traffic to start to come visit you. Go back to your field guide or do some research online and find out what they eat. Lots of birds eat generic bird seed you can get at Costco or a grocery store but also some birds like fruit and insects. Hummingbirds, for example, drink nectar which you can make easily at home (4 parts water to 1 part sugar). Bluebirds will visit you for mealworms. Peanuts are also a fan favorite. You can also put up a birdbath as well which will bring some bathing beauties to your yard. Once they start coming to visit, take note of which birds are more frequent and pay attention to their behavior. That will help you recognize their patterns and behaviors to make you more successful at capturing them.
What if you are not home and you want to find birds? Obviously look for local nature preserves where the birds nest in the forests. You can also look for local watering holes where water fowl like to hang out.
Remember the apps I mentioned earlier? You can use those to track where other people have spotted birds locally. This is especially helpful during spring and fall migrations when the birds are moving to warmer or colder climates. You can even keep a list of birds you have seen and spotted to help others find unusual birds as well. Composition Tips Most of the composition rules that we use for people shooting apply to wildlife too, however, since we can’t direct our wild subjects to pose or move a certain way, we have to compensate for that with our positioning. First off we need to talk about environment. It is a rare opportunity to shoot something in the wild that is out in the open and sitting nicely still for us. I mean, it happens on occasion and we wonder how we got so lucky, but most of the time we are chasing our subjects around lots of distracting elements. It’s always nice to see a pretty bird at the bird feeder but I tend to not love those shots because the feeder itself is usually quite ugly and distracting.
So instead I try very hard to capture birds, and other wildlife, away from these types of objects. In some cases, birds like to perch themselves in the trees above the feeders before and after they get a little bite. That is a perfect time to capture them away from the ugly feeders.
But it’s not all that easy to shoot birds in the trees either. There are lots of objects in the way that we have to work around. Sometimes you get lucky and catch the birds out on an unobstructed limb, like the female hummingbird above. But a good majority of the time you are dealing with tree limbs, leaves and other elements either in front of or behind your subject making it not as pleasing as you would like.
So how do we work around the obstructions? If the animal is cooperative and will stand still long enough for you to change angles, move around as much as you can to get the shot with as little obstructions as possible. If that doesn’t work, just try to get ther face as clear as possible and try to limit the locations of the branches. Watch and wait, patience is definitely a must when shooting wildlife, and see if they move into a more favorable position. But if all else fails, try to use the foliage to your advantage for framing.
Post Processing
Take a lot of photos but not too many that you will be behind your computer culling for hours. You want to bring home a nice selection of shots that you can narrow down to the ones you feel have the best head placement and as little obstructions as possible.
Cropping is done most of the time in post. I pay more attention to getting the animal in focus and in a good placement when I am shooting and then I crop later when I am editing. I often use the ROTs for wildlife, just as I would with human shooting, and I use the golden triangle overlay often to help me get my subject and environment placed where I want it.
Center composition works well for wildlife as well. I like it especially when I can get eye contact from my subjects and I can place their faces in the center of the frame with little distractions around them.
FinalThoughts
Connecting with your subjects is something that elevates a photograph into art. But how do you do that with wildlife shooting? Connecting with non-human subjects can be challenging. You obviously can’t talk to them, pose them, make them sit still. So how do you create meaningful and emotive portraits of wild animals? What do you want your work to show about these animals in the wild living their lives among us? Just merely pressing the shutter button every time a bird comes near us is fine if you just want to capture and remember what you saw. But how do to take that to the next level? What can we do as humans to feel closer and connected to the animals that share our world in order for us to create more emotion in our art?
These are the questions that most wildlife shooters ask themselves every day they are out looking for and connecting to wild animals. For each of us the answers are different but have similar themes. For me, I just love birds very much. I’ve always had a passion for the birds and through my photography I want to share their beauty with the world as I see them. Using elements such as natural environment, connection between the animals and eye contact can evoke this emotional response from the viewer and connect them to the subject. Showcasing animals in their natural habitats will bring attention and understanding to my viewers and hopefully educate them about how best to live and share the Earth together.
