Wildlife photography is a pretty straightforward process, almost cookbook-like in its simplest form. It is one of those things that is easy to get the hang of but hard to master. A vast majority of the wildlife photos that are published are shot the same way: with the aperture close to wide open at a high shutter speed with a moderate to high ISO setting or a sturdy tripod and using a telephoto lens. This tried and true combination allows the best chance to get sharply focused, frame-filling photos.
Sometimes though despite doing everything right with the best technique , the best equipment, the best light and the best of intentions you still can’t get a decent, let alone great picture. How can this be? Well, you forgot to do all your homework.
This realization came to me while Brenda Berry and I were up in Tofino, B.C. scouting out a new PAW workshop location for 2010. In the process of investigating all the photography potential of the area we discovered that wildlife viewing boat trips were very popular. There must have been half a dozen boat operators that offered once or twice a day trips out in to the local waters to photograph seals, bald eagles and most alluringly, black bears. They all went to the same places at the same time of day and they all charged about the same amount for a trip. But they weren’t all equal as far as photography went.
And this brings us to the most important wildlife photography technique – picking the best operator to get you the best pictures when you are on a trip. This step is too often ignored by photographers wanting to get great wildlife pictures. I hear about it all the time on my workshops. People tell me about the safari vehicle that had too many people in it or that wouldn’t linger or that went out too late and in too early. I hear about bird blinds that have terrible backgrounds or ugly perches. And then there are the boats in the Galapagos that get their people on shore at mid-morning or the whale watching trips that are always on the wrong, back lit side of any whale they find.
Doing your homework means checking out the potential operators and asking them lots of questions. This is what we did in Tofino. What time of day do you go out? Can we move around the boat? How many people are going on the excursion? Is the light better in the afternoon or morning? Is there a place on board we can stash our camera bags? Do you linger with the animal or rush off to find something new? Can the engine be turned off when we are near?
When we did our due diligence we found only one boat that was suitable for serious photography. All the other boats were either too small or much too big, had windows to shoot through, wouldn’t allow people to move around, had no place for our gear or jammed in people shoulder to shoulder in the front of the boat, in the weather. You could be doing everything right photographically but if the situation is bad or inappropriate for photography all your skills will be for naught. Do your homework!
The operator we found, Aquatic Safaris, is owned and operated by Keith Phillips (website: www.WhaleSafaris.com ) was perfect. The boat was fast yet stable when we found wildlife, had a wide bow deck where we could lie down (with the engine off) to get a better perspective and better support our telephotos, it had a nice heated cabin for our gear and nippy fingers and Keith listened to our suggestions about background and shooting angle and did everything he could to satisfy us.
The end result was a great experience. We drifted in so close to the bears as they hunted crabs in the low tide rocks that we could hear the bear’s feet splash in the water as they walked along the shore and hear the loud crunches as they gobbled up each found crab. The photo of the bear was taken hand held using my Nikon 300mm f4 lens. I used autofocus and aperture priority and shot it at f 5.6 at 1/60th using an ISO of 1250.
Not every shot I took was in focus or properly framed, but there were plenty that were and Brenda and I were very, very happy with the experience. By the way, we will be going out twice with Aquatic Safaris next year on our Pacific Rim workshop!
