The Basics of Nature Photography

Look for interesting combinations of: color, light (and shadow) and texture. The best light is usually morning light (warmer, yellow), late afternoon, or evening light (warmer, a hint of red to full red). Mid-day light can make shadows and bright contrast that are difficult for the film to handle.

In India, due to high levels of dust, smoke and water vapour in the atmosphere, beautiful light is seen rarely; the rainy season is your best bet. If landscape photography is your passion, learning to see the light is the single most important talent you need to develop.

Get up close to the flower or bark of a tree; maybe only inches away. Look up, look down. One great rule is to look behind you; sometimes the best photo is the one you just walked by but saw from the wrong side. Freeze the motion of a waterfall with a fast shutter speed, or blur it with a slow one.

Don't always make the main subject the center of the photo. Try the rule of thirds, placing the main subject of the photo in the left or right third of the frame.

When photographing landscapes, give the photo a feeling of depth by including close objects in the frame as well as the distant subject. Remember to use a tripod in such situations. That will allow you to use the smallest aperture possible, giving you the highest depth of field.

Really close. Closer. Fill up the frame. It's easy to be too far away from your subject, but hard to get too close.

Many beginning nature photographers are amazed when they see their first wildlife photos. The animal they found, and painstakingly stalked and photographed are small dots on the film, barely recognizable.

Many photographers use a hide, a camouflaged hiding place. It may be a tent, a bush, a wall of camouflage material, a car, or even a window. While using hides, remember that the welfare of the animal comes foremost. Nesting birds are very sensitive to intrusion, so be very careful.

This is the advice that all beginners ignore, but you should not. When beginners in the art of photography meet, they fight over camera bodies. Pro's fight over tripods and heads.

For the beginner, most any tripod will do. But the lighter the tripod, the more likely you are to take it with you. In India, where you have to walk everywhere, you need a light tripod. The cheap light ones made by Slik are quite adequate.

The best photo opportunities present themselves only during certain times of the year, at any given place. So be ready to travel, to catch every place, at its most opportune time. The Valley of Flowers is the place to go to in August and September, Bharatpur in winter and Kanha just before the rains.

Most serious photographers take several shots of the same subject, trying several different angles and exposures. Film is your cheapest investment, when compared to time and equipment. You could give away the not so good ones to one of your local nature clubs, which are generally very happy to accept contributions of slides.

Like cooking, if you can't remember the recipe you used the one time you got it right, you'll never learn enough to do it again. Try to note film type, location, time of day, lens used, aperture and shutter speed. Try making a standard form that you can fill out as soon as you take the photograph.

You do need to use your camera enough that it becomes second nature to you. Many opportunities in nature photography are fleeting; you don't want to miss it because you couldn't remember how to over-ride the auto-exposure setting, etc.

Don't get so wrapped up in photographing that you forget to enjoy what you're seeing. A photograph is a poor substitute for being there, so enjoy it while you're there. Make photography part of the overall fun, not an end in itself. As you progress in your work, you will need to share your ideas and experiences with others - the photo.net Nature Photography Pages provide the best resource on the Web.

There are many good books on Nature photography available. But my favourites are the four books by John Shaw, to whom many of the ideas mentioned above, owe their origin. If you must buy only one book on photography, buy the first one listed below.

If you have access to the Web, then read the immense amount of material put up at photo.net by Philip Greenspun and others.

Recommended Reading:

1. Shaw John, Nature Photographers Guide to Professional Field Techniques, Amphoto, 1984
2. Shaw John, Close-ups in Nature, Amphoto, 1987
3. Shaw John, Focus on Nature, Amphoto, 1991
4. Shaw John, Landscape Photography, Amphoto, 1994