Wildlife Watcher - October 2007

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American Avocet Couple, Palo Alto Baylands Preserve

You might dream of seeing that hummingbird mother feeding her helpless nestlings, a silent sword swallower's act on a two-inch stage. Or photographing a merlin as he preens just before takeoff.

But later, when you look at your pictures on the monitor, they seem a little flat. The emotional blast just isn't there.

How do you give your viewers the same jolt you got watching and photographing the action?

Get close. Low. At eye-level. And focus.

That's the short answer. There's a lot more to the long answer.

Your mind picks out what excites you most. It might be an egret parent feeding its young, woolly bison play-fighting, dual-slalom racers running flat-out, or newlyweds kissing. You want to share your vision. To draw someone into your world, your way of seeing a wild animal, your best friend, or an event.

Get Close For Attention
First, get close. With a 500mm lens - heck, with any lens - you still need to be close enough for your subject to occupy at least a quarter of the frame. Even with eight or 10 megapixels to play with, cropping won't do it if your subject isn't big enough to start with. There's something magical about picking out feather texture in your image of that young Cooper's hawk as he watches for prey.

Cooper's Hawk, Saratoga, California

That sharpness will make your friends and paying clients feel like reaching into the picture to touch your subjects in your on-screen shows and big prints. The pixels to create that impact need to be in your subject, or you'll get mush.

Go Low for the Eyes
Remember when you were a kid sitting at your desk, and the teacher walked over to reprimand you for the rubberband you just shot? (OK, maybe today you'd be IMing a classmate.) You'd look straight up her nose - not a very attractive view - and she'd tower overhead. From her high point of view, you'd look small. From either vantage point, there wasn't much connection.

You need to connect viewers with your subject for emotional impact. The best way to do that is to capture your subject at eye level. With ground squirrels, waterbirds and other ground-feeding animals, that means crouching down low with the camera, or lowering your tripod.

Western Gray Squirrel, Saratoga, California

Most modern tripods allow placing the legs at lower angles. The best way to use a tripod down low is to shorten two of the legs at more vertical angles, and extend the third at a relaxed angle. The relaxed, long leg should be aimed at the subject for best stability, but I've aimed it backwards too. It depends on the space you have.

Focus That Attention!
Finally, there's focus. You want viewers to pay attention to your subject. Making it large in the viewfinder gets you halfway there. But you need to reduce the impact of everything else. Your eye and mind look for the sharp parts in a photograph. Your mind tends to ignore everything else. So you want the sharpness on your subject's eyes, maybe his head, and blur out the rest. Fast lenses with narrow depth of field will do that naturally when you shoot at the widest aperture.

Why focus on the eye? Humans pay instinctive attention to eyes, and will forgive unsharpness anywhere else.

Bison, Antelope Island, Great Salt Lake, Utah

No Close Fuzzy Stuff
Avoid branches or other stuff between the camera and your subject. Even if it's not obscuring the subject, an out-of focus person, animal or other closer objects will look bigger than the subject, and draw attention away.

Are these hard and fast rules? No. But they work most of the time. The final thing I look for is eyeshine, a catchlight in the subject's eye. That adds life to any photograph.

It Works For Event Watchers Too
These guidelines apply to any subject, in many situations. I shoot individuals at events when I can get close enough. I can usually capture one person in great light, with an expression I'm looking for. I love couples and groups, but it's much harder to get several people with the light I want and the right expressions at the same time. When you're photographing your kids, there's always somebody sticking his tongue out or squinting at the camera when everyone else is perfect.

Wicked Tinkers' Warren Patrick Casey
Loch Lomond Highland Games, California

Got a different view? Discovered something useful? Email me

I've distilled much of what I've learned photographing wildlife up close into a downloadable eBook. Now you can have my field experience on-call whenever you like with Wildlife: Stealth Approach for an Intimate View. Click for a free preview!

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