Shot

Michelle Valberg has been a photographer for 30 years. For 17 of those years, she has been visiting her family’s cottage on Sharbot Lake, Ont., and seen a loon family — always a mother with two babies on her back. “And for 17 years, I had not been able to get that shot.”

For someone who has photographed everything from B.C.’S spirit bears to African elephants, the common loon might seem unimpressive. But for Valberg, wildlife photography is all about creating a connection with the animal. “It’s that expression. It’s an emotion — an intimacy,” she says.

And this year with the loons, she finally captured that. “I went out in my kayak and I turned around an island, and I saw where one was nesting,” says Valberg. “And they just allowed me in.”

The fact that this is what comes to mind when she describes her “best shot” supports one of Valberg’s biggest recommendations for budding nature photographers. “A lot of people think they have to travel to far reaches of the world to photograph exotic animals to be a wildlife photographer,” she says. “Just look in your backyard.”

Isabelle Groc from B.C. says she teaches the same thing in her photography workshops. “Immerse yourself in the world of the species close to home,” she says. “Say to yourself, ‘how can I photograph these species? What can I do to make it interesting?’”

When it comes to photographing wildlife, “I’ve learned over the years to be very humble and patient… not to have too high expectations when I go out,” Groc says. Once, she was on assignment to photograph right whales for Canadian Wildlife — she has been a contributor to the magazine almost as long as she’s been a photographer — and the right whales never came. “It sort of taught me a lesson. It showed me that this is our reality, especially if we want to conserve the species that we love to photograph.”

John E. Marriott from Alberta agrees. “All of us, as wildlife photographers, have to be guardians,” he says. “Because we are the ones that are out there all the time.”