Backyard Beasts!
Get ready to photograph amazing wildlife no matter where you live with Tom Mason and his comprehensive tips and tricks
Discover how you can take ace shots of everyday animals
When it comes to the single piece of advice I’d give to wildlife photographers – be it those starting out, developing their craft, or just looking for a new challenge – it would be to get started on your very own local wildlife photography project! It doesn’t matter if it’s blue tits in the garden, frogs in the pond or the local street fox, find something close to home that you can work and develop photographically. Over the past few years I’ve had the luxury of working on a variety of international assignments, from watching elephants in the Okavango to camera trapping for jaguars in the Amazon. They certainly offered some amazing opportunities for wildlife photography, but when it comes to developing my work, style and shooting techniques, that’s always been a job for home.
Be it the garden, a local nature reserve or the graveyard at the end of the road, it’s simply amazing the abundance of wildlife photography opportunities you can find in your neighbourhood. Granted, it might not contain some of the more exotic wildlife, but you’ll be surprised by the wildlife we are lucky
to have on our shores. The moment you really start to explore, it’s incredible how much potential is right outside your window and how, through a little thought, experimentation and long-term commitment, you’ll be able to make some of your best wildlife photography ever, a mere stone’s throw from the back door!
THE PROJECT MINDSET
Now, as much as wandering the local lanes, footpaths and parkland looking for subjects to shoot is enjoyable, in terms of making consistent successful images, it’s certainly less fruitful. We have all done it, just picked up the camera, headed out and stumbled across an amazing encounter with wildlife. But, more often than not, the ‘walkabout’ style provides a selection of half-baked possibilities that you’re not prepared for, and that rarely materialize as winning images. For success with local wildlife projects, then, the mindset needs to be a little different, with methodical being the operative word! It may feel a little strange, at first, to find some methodology behind your wildlife shooting, but in practice it’s a game changer. Distilling it down, there are three key stages to any project I’m working on: research, setup and shoot.
Research your subjects
Time spent on research is never wasted and for local projects it can be a mix of hitting the books as well as getting your boots on. Ideas for local wildlife projects can appear anywhere – be it stepping out of the car in town and spotting a fox or catching a glimpse of a barn owl over a local field, these first glimpses providing a starting point for further exploration. With a subject in mind, a lot of the time I want to get to know them, and so opening up my laptop, reference books and guides, I’ll get stuck into learning more. Habits and habitats, tracks and signs: get to know what you should be looking for with an idea of building up a better picture of where, when and how you can find your subject, helping to engineer more time with them in front of your lens!
Time spent on research is never wasted and for local projects it can be a mix of hitting the books as well as getting your boots on
Scout locations
Be sure to record things as you go, I find a project notebook or diary can be really helpful in order to keep track of ideas for images or locations. Often I’ll have a few subjects I’m working on at once, so it’s handy to keep notes, especially if some projects are being worked on over months or even years.
With the base knowledge down, get out and apply it to your locations. Scout areas with binoculars, looking to understand where your subjects are, and then use this knowledge to think about how to position yourself for images. Note the direction the sun will set or rise, any prevailing winds, and so on. Shoot dummy shots to explore compositions and
ideas, ensuring a location will fulfil what you’re after before committing to hours in wait.
That methodical process works to give you the best opportunity for photographic success!
Get set to shoot
With your research conducted and locations scouted, it’s time for the fun part behind the camera. Trust in your research and commit to the locations you’ve scouted, get into position for the optimum time, and then focus on the images or compositions you’ve visualized. Return repeatedly until it comes together and look
to explore the opportunities. If you hit gold with a location, be sure to commit as much time as you can and reap the rewards of your methodical approach!
GARDEN BIRDS
When it comes to a local wildlife project, the garden truly is the obvious place to start. Even the smallest of spaces can offer some awesome opportunities for wildlife images. With the close proximity allowing for access on a whim, they are ideal for making the most of those short windows of time in your day, or changing weather conditions.
Find your site
Building your own garden bird feeding station is a great little project that almost anyone can do. Starting from scratch, in a few weeks you can have a multitude of species and photographic potential outside your window. Firstly watch the garden for a day or two. Don’t worry about the birds, but the way the light moves through the day: where the light touches, how shadows fall and the possible backgrounds you’ll have to play with. Look for a spot where you have a decent clean background, with a site to place a feeding perch around three to four metres in front. The simplest way is to use a movable post that will allow for the feeder position to be changed, but if you already have a location set up for your feeders then work from there.
Set the stage
With feeders hung, you’ll want to place a couple of perches around them. Directly attach these to your movable feeder post (I find a few reusable cable ties work wonders), or if you have feeders in place, just find a way to position your perch in a way that puts it close to the feeders, giving the birds a spot to perch on before feeding.
When choosing perches, be sure to think about the types of bird you’re looking to attract. Smaller garden birds look unnatural on big sticks, so look for thin twigs of around half-a-centimetre thick. If you have larger birds, such as woodpeckers, wider branches aid in a more natural-looking frame.
Plan the shot
As this is where you’ll be making your images, when setting up it’s a good idea to position your camera where you’ll want to be shooting from, working out your composition and background. Everything set, leave the feeders for a few weeks for the birds to get used to settling on the perches, as it will take them a while to get consistent in using the new branches or finding the feeders if you have only just put them up. Once the birds are coming in, get out and make the most of your garden shoots. Mix up the perches every so often and get creative. Try substituting the background with an old sheet for a splash of colour, or work with a remote camera set close to the perch for wide-angle images. A great project for home, it’s also perfect for making the most of any weather conditions, with wintry flurries really adding to the look of garden bird images. Of course, if you’re close enough to the house, with a little planning you can shoot from an open door or window with a cup of tea in hand – not too bad indeed!
If you’re close enough to the house, with a little planning you can shoot from an open door or window with a cup of tea in hand
KEEP IT LOCAL
Venturing outside the garden there is huge potential for wildlife photography in the local area, with fields, parkland and scrub offering a whole host of photographic opportunities.
Park life
Parkland is a great place for wildlife photography, largely due to the number of people you find there! It seems a little counter-intuitive, but with increased visitors, wildlife is often far tamer and more easily approached than anything outside. Park lakes or ponds can be awesome for photographing waterbirds. Get low on the water’s edge with a telephoto lens, and you can pick out subjects and isolate them with a wider aperture like f/4 or f/5.6.
If you’re working on this style of image for prolonged periods, think about a right-angled viewfinder or work with the vari-angle screen on your mirrorless camera. The super-low water level view can really enhance the look of the shots, giving a great natural look.
Farmland
Growing up in Hertfordshire I’m used to being surrounded by arable fields flanked by hedgerows. If you are lucky enough to live out in a more rural location, these can be great places to develop a local project. Of course, much farmland is private land, so be sure to get permission before venturing off the known footpaths. I have always found farmers and landowners great to work with, and a bottle of wine or box of beer, along with a couple of prints, often works well to gain access to some new locations!
When springtime comes around, farmland is the perfect place to look for one of my favourite subjects, the brown hare. You’ll almost always find me through March and April crawling around in
the fields, stalking these fantastic long-eared mammals. Most of the time I’ll watch from a distance for a few days, in order to asses their habits and the corners of the fields they tend towards, before positioning myself around midday and waiting for the sun to drop. Drab colours and a low position, lying down, can reward you with stunning close encounters. If trying to stalk closer, watch for them to return to feeding before crawling a metre or two and stopping again. Shoot as you go to get them used to the shutter sound, which reduces the risk of spooking them before the perfect moment.
When it comes to settings, I almost always want to be shooting around 1/1000 sec at f/4-5.6, depending on the light. This allows for great separation between my subjects and their background for simple, clean images.
Woodland
Offering a different aesthetic and habitat to explore, local woodlands are full of potential. A plethora of subjects find themselves at home, from secluded badger setts to local herds of deer. A great style to shoot here is making the most of natural frames, looking for windows in the foliage, or space between trees to aid your compositions. It might be a deer poking its head round a tree, or a badger caught in-between a mass of foliage, but utilizing
It seems a little counter-intuitive, but with increased visitors wildlife is often far tamer and more easily approached
these small gaps can make for intriguing and depth-filled layered compositions.
NATURE RESERVES
Every wildlife photographer should have a favourite local nature reserve, no exceptions. I basically grew up on the wetland reserve just down the road from my house, with the location providing the setting for the first major project I ever published. Having a local reserve you regularly visit has a whole host of benefits in terms of additional subjects and habitats of course, but also the community you’ll find around them.
Habitats
Specifically engineered to have flourishing habitats, local reserves can have great diversity and species concentration. The management for year-round productivity means that, compared to surrounding open areas, nature reserves can really be packed with activity and unique environments, giving us photographers far more opportunities. The mixture of wet woodland, reed bed, meadow and streams can see one small area hosting kingfishers and reed warblers, for example, as well as flocks of waders, birds of prey and more.
If you’re lucky enough to have a wetland reserve close to home, a great subject to get out and look for is the water vole. Very cute and often fairly confiding, small corners of nature reserves can be a haven for these little mammals. After suffering declines from mink predation, populations are bouncing back around the UK. Favouring slowmoving waterways with rough banks that allow for burrowing, with an abundance of rushes for feeding, a dead giveaway of their presence are small low-lying feeding platforms, or the characterful
Knowledgeable and passionate about the local wildlife, staff, volunteers and visitors can be a great help in finding wildlife
‘plop’ they make when jumping into the water after being disturbed. With the location pinned, wait along the water’s edge and try to position yourself at a low angle in order to improve your chances of clean backgrounds. Look to shoot through gaps in vegetation for added depth in your images.
Permanent hides
On many reserves you’ll find a selection of hides in place around the location, offering a concealed view over select habitats. Permanent in their construction, they allow those inside to remain concealed without disturbing the natural activity. In addition, some hides overlook breeding locations that are otherwise easily disturbed. My old local spot had a great hide for watching kingfishers through the summer, offering a chance to view and photograph a nest without the need for a licence. This is perfect for getting close-in views and watching breeding behaviour that would otherwise rarely be possible. Often built with birdwatchers in mind, nature reserve hides can seem a little distant at times, but for us photographers it’s all about patience, and committing to the fact that, with enough time and effort on repeated returns to these areas, the wildlife will come to that perfect spot!
Community minded
In addition to all the above, one great thing about local nature reserves are the communities of people within them. Knowledgeable and passionate about the local wildlife, staff, volunteers and visitors can be a great help in finding wildlife, getting to know the best spots and helping with your
photographic endeavours. Many of my images would have been impossible without local help.
THE LONG GAME
Rome wasn’t built in a day. We all know that, and successful wildlife photography projects are similar. If you want to build a great body of work with depth to the images and a variety of styles and feels within the portfolio, you have to be committed to the long haul. Experimentation is inherently unreliable, and so in order to make a diverse set of images that span multiple styles, moods or seasons, you’ll need time. The long game presents you with the opportunity to shape your work as you go, finding what works or doesn’t, while still giving you the ability to lean into an idea or style in order to give direction to your work.
Camera traps
Working with remote cameras is a great style to hone on home turf, be it triggering from a distance or autonomously; they offer the chance to work with wide-angle lenses for a total change of perspective from the general wildlife photography genre. I’ve been working with various remote camera systems over the past few years, specifically with the idea of creating more unique images of my local wildlife.
In most cases I’m working with a DSLR camera trap, combining an entry-level camera with an infrared trigger and triggered flashes to allow for the capture of wildlife in the landscape. Siting cameras takes time, and with the idea of capturing natural behaviour being pivotal, finding locations that provide consistent activity is key. Once found, I’ll spend a good few hours investigating the location, trying out different compositions as well as assessing the best place for positioning the triggers in order to capture the decisive moment. In most cases I’ll be aiming to take control of the exposure with flash, underexposing any ambient light before filling in with my own Speedlights. I’ll always use at least two flashes as primary and fill lights, however sometimes images can take up to five flashes for something a little more complicated.
Camera traps are certainly a labour of love… long hours to construct, multiple teething problems along the way, so many areas that can go wrong… it can take months to get results. However, this style of photography really can lead to some unique shots and is certainly worth experimenting with on your doorstep.
If there is any one piece of advice I would give to anyone when it comes to wildlife photography, it’s to try to take more risks
Risk assessment
A last point is something that I rarely see covered,
but risk is something to be embraced when working on a local project. So often within our photography we stick to safe, reliable methods, going straight for that faster shutter speed and freezing the action.
More often, I find that some of the best images are those made with the element of risk: slowing down that shutter speed to add movement, positioning a remote camera in a vulnerable spot, focusing somewhere other than the eye…
If there is any one piece of advice I would give to anyone when it comes to wildlife photography, it’s to try to take more risks. Yes you’ll miss images in the process, but in the long run, you’ll make chances for unique images that are far from the norm!