Always be prepared and always be obsessed to get the best photos
To get the images you want, you have to always be prepared for when the opportunity arises
Nine metres from my front door. I’ll say that again. Nine metres… After 10 years as a wildlife photographer, working in the UK and in some incredible worldwide destinations, I’ve had some pretty cool wildlife experiences. One of the things I love most about nature is its constant ability to throw up the unexpected. Wildlife really doesn’t stick to the rules we try to place on it and great subjects can show up just about anywhere at anytime.
A question I’m asked regularly by other photographers is: “How do I go about finding subjects for my photographic projects?” Although some are pre-planned, especially those overseas, most start with a moment in nature that is the catalyst for a new photographic avenue, a random moment when wildlife reveals itself.
The new normal
One of the key principles for finding wildlife is understanding what the baseline normal is. It’s a weird idea, but bear with me. If you wake up at home, the likelihood is that you know where everything is in your bedroom – my glasses are on the side table, phone next to that, the bed is where it always is, and the creaky floorboard I step over when sneaking out for an early morning shoot, so as not to wake my girlfriend at 4am, is two back from the door. Little things you know, because they’re simply normal to you. If something was out of place, you’d recognize it immediately. Finding wildlife is much the same.
When you’ve been to locations regularly enough, you start to understand the normal: the way the trees move in the wind, the sounds of the regular bird-life, distant cars, the outline of a crow on a fence, or the mud clots from a tractor wheel in the field. Normalities that help us dial in to find what we want… the abnormal. Knowing your baseline makes it simple to see the difference. The birds suddenly going quiet provides a clue for a sparrowhawk; a mud clot that is too light in colour identifies a brown hare’s location; two crows lifting up towards another bird finds you a buzzard. Little pieces of the puzzle all coming together like this help us find our subjects.
One key piece of information I’ve withheld, however, is the fact that rarely do these moments come at the perfect time. You know, those three days you scheduled for some kingfisher photography, or to get out looking for otters… No, they come when nature wants to. You can be walking though town, or just getting back to the car when the wildlife appears. It’s that flash of abnormality drawing you away from whatever you’re doing.
To get the images, you have to be ready at a moment’s notice, happy to change plans and roll with what Mother Nature intends. It could be a threeminute session with a few bad images for your trouble or, just sometimes, six hours after you abandoned your coffee, you’re still waist deep in a river, holding your camera because an otter is playing in front of you in a once-in-a-lifetime moment. You have to be prepared to go all-in when it does. You might get home late, have to miss a train, miss dinner, or ruin your shoes and new jeans, but who cares, if you get that incredible moment!
Having been away for two weeks running some workshops, I’d just landed
To get the images, you have to be ready at a moment’s notice, happy to change plans and roll with what Mother Nature intends
back home, bags unopened. I put the kettle on. Just as I was about to start a conversation with my girlfriend, I glanced out of our front window that overlooked the harbour, and I saw it.
A single word and I dashed upstairs to pull out my cameras. Moments later, I was crawling across the road, as just nine metres from my door was a bird I’d always wanted to photograph. A peregrine falcon, tearing feathers from its prey. I held up traffic as I lay face down on the tarmac. In 15 minutes I managed to shoot hundreds of images, as close as two metres from what is one of the most impressive birds in the world. It just goes to show that you don’t need to go to the ends of the earth for great wildlife photography, you just have to expect the unexpected, and be ready to make the most of it when it actually comes your way!