Wildlife photography is by no means confined to taking big game on safari, but is a vast genre that embraces mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, as well as insects, spiders, and marine and freshwater life. Nevertheless, it is interesting behaviour displayed by the larger animals that tends to produce the most eye-catching and memorable pictures. A wildlife photograph succeeds if it entices the viewer to give it more than a cursory glance.
Just as the sizes, habits, and mobility of animals vary greatly, so do the techniques required to photograph them, and the approach adopted can be either scientific or artistic, or a combination of both. Identification books prefer high-definition pictures of individual animals showing their characteristic features; whereas a more aesthetic approach can stand on its own in an exhibition or a photographic book. But achieving scientific accuracy or an artistic composition need not be mutually exclusive. An example that successfully bridges the gulf between science and art was produced by Eadweard Muybridge in the 1870s, with his pioneering work recording animal locomotion frame by frame. At the time, this was a scientific breakthrough, and many of his images still exhibit a classic beauty.
Shortly after the invention of the wet-plate process in 1851, dedicated field photographers transported not only cumbersome cameras, but also portable darkrooms in wagons or tents out on location. Almost a decade later, the elephant hunter James Chapman used two unwieldy cameras in his attempt to photograph living African wildlife. One camera was wrecked when it blew down in the wind; the other disintegrated in the heat. Resourcefully, Chapman rebuilt a new camera from the parts he salvaged, but luck was against him when chemical containers ruptured and his porters inadvertently scared the game. In the end, therefore, he had to resort to photographing animals he had shot.
Slow emulsions limited the choice of subjects; relatively static portraits, notably of birds at the nest, were therefore popular. The nest was a fixed place to which the birds would return, so a hide could be erected at fairly close quarters for working with not particularly long lenses.
At the end of the 19th century, when photographing breeding birds at close range, Richard and Cherry Kearton devised many ingenious ways for camouflaging themselves, including using artificial rocks, tree stumps, and even a dummy bullock. Once when Richard was working inside the bullock, he became dizzy from peering through the small opening and lost his balance, so the hide tipped over, with all six legs, four of the bullock plus Richard's, sticking incongruously into the air.
The year 1895 saw the publication of the first book of wildlife photographs, entitled British Birds' Nests, by the Keartons. Just two years later, their book With Nature and a Camera included pictures of birds in flight, one of which was a barn owl taken with magnesium flashlight. Some of the techniques used by pioneering wildlife photographers would raise more than an eyebrow today. Sometimes so much magnesium powder was ignited for a single picture that it set fire to the surrounding vegetation. The explosion frightened the animals so much that, not surprisingly, they failed to return after the first frame was exposed. When working with seabirds, the Keartons would fire a revolver to disturb the adults, so that the position of a nest could be located before they descended from the clifftop with camera and tripod.
The introduction of the dry plate and smaller-format cameras aided field photographers, but for the first half of the 20th century the weight of equipment still remained problematical. Herbert Ponting, the photographer on Scott's 1910-12 British Antarctic Expedition, transported 180 kg (400 lb) of photographic and camping gear over the ice on a one-man sledge. His half-plate negatives still produce superb prints.
The brisk evolution of cameras and film transformed the techniques of wildlife photography in the latter part of the 20th century. The reduction in size and weight of cameras and lenses was a boon to the wildlife photographer and, with the advent of the 35 mm or medium-format single-lens reflex camera, plates were discarded for film. Long-focus lenses increased the working distance between photographer and subject, giving greater freedom to capture the natural behaviour of birds and mammals.
Without a hide, the wildlife photographer had to learn how to stalk subjects with acute vision out in the open. Wearing appropriately coloured clothing became essential and learning how to keep a low profile by zigzagging forward using rocks or trees as cover, or even belly crawling, became second nature.
The next great advance was the production of colour film that allowed wildlife photographers to capture the glorious hues of some subjects. However, original Kodachrome had a film speed of only 10 ASA, much slower than the monochrome films used at the time; so that the photographer was limited to either using a ‘fast’ lens or waiting until the light was bright enough to expose the slow colour film. Colour plays a key role in the ecology of the natural world; for example, camouflage colours enable an animal to blend in with the background and escape predation, while bright colours may advertise an animal to a possible mate or threaten a potential predator. Clearly, a monochrome photograph cannot convey the same messages.
Timing is crucial to success in many aspects of wildlife photography; the prime location and way of life of an animal needs to be thoroughly researched via websites and by getting local advice from rangers. Animals have distinct biological clocks that ensure optimum times to migrate, to mate, and ultimately to breed, which allows a narrow window of opportunity for the wildlife photographer. Determining the prime time is therefore crucial. For instance, pregnant female harp seals haul out on pack ice off the Îles de la Madeleine in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Canada, to pup within a few days of each other. The time-span for achieving the most photogenic pictures is thus only a few days long, and since the speediest way to reach the ice is by helicopter, bad visibility reduces the ‘window’ for photography still further. Success comes to the wildlife photographer who plans carefully and has a lot of patience, and luck.
Working on location varies between taking meticulously planned shots depicting some aspect of animal behaviour, to being able to exploit unexpected opportunities that arise from ephemeral moments when a shaft of light backlights hairy coats or prickly spines. A wildlife photographer is constantly on the lookout for a combination of elements that transform a picture from a simple record into an image that communicates. Lighting alone can turn a wildlife picture into something that makes people look twice. Birds and mammals that display fascinating behaviour are a great boon to wildlife photographers, who can choose the technique they wish to depict the event. Today, fast motordrives, through-the-lens metering, and near-instantaneous autofocus allow sequences to be taken of high-speed action, such as a cheetah chase or an osprey lifting off with a fish in its talons.
A slow shutter speed can also be used to convey movement as the camera is panned in the same direction as a bird is flying or a mammal running, or the motion of a few individuals in an otherwise static group. For much of the time king penguins are on land they are relatively inactive, but as a bird begins to weave through the colony, the adjacent birds lunge towards it. In fading light, the film may have to be pushed one or more stops to get any picture at all; alternatively, instead of using a faster film to gain a fast shutter speed to freeze all action, a slow shutter speed can be used to blur the moving birds in contrast to the stationary ones.
Each wildlife photographer will adopt an individual approach. In an African game park, some may prefer to photograph as many different species as possible; while others prefer to concentrate on a single species, such as the elephant. By focusing on just one species the rewards can be greater because time can be spent observing, and then anticipating behaviour. Using a selection of lenses at different times of day, in variable weather conditions, will provide an insight into the way of life of African elephants.
When the action is fast, long-focus zoom lenses are a boon to wildlife photographers, since they allow precise cropping of a subject, in a horizontal or vertical format. But longer zooms (up to 400 mm) are slow lenses, which means faster films will have to be used at dawn and dusk when many mammals are active. This is the reason why a fast prime lens in the 400 mm-600 mm range is an essential tool for the serious wildlife photographer. Shorter zooms are useful for depicting animals in their habitat. Macro zoom lenses allow speedy and tight framing of smaller wary animals in the field; whether they be insects, amphibians, reptiles, or life in rock pools accessible only for a limited time between tides.
Photographing nocturnal animals is a real challenge, since their senses at night are infinitely sharper than those of any human moving around in the dark. Since mammals have an acute sense of smell, they need to be approached from downwind, to avoid human scent reaching them. Nocturnal mammals are often creatures of habit that utilize favourite tracks, on which a camera can be set up to be triggered by an animal breaking an infrared trip beam. Flash units need to be moved off the camera axis to avoid the problem of red-eye, whereby the flash reflects back off the retina.
There are few habitats where wildlife photographers have not ventured with their cameras. Caves require a continuous light source to locate animals and flash to photograph them. Working in polar regions requires special clothing to function and dedication to keep cameras working. In extreme cold, batteries cease to function, rendering electronic cameras without a remote battery pack, or a chemical hand warmer taped to the outside of the battery pack, useless. Manual models are therefore more reliable in sub-zero temperatures, when it is safer to rewind 35 mm film by hand, because the film becomes brittle and sprocket holes easily tear.
The ever-improving facility of digital enhancement now adds an extra dimension to the question of ethics. Digital manipulation can be a highly creative tool, but it can result in the production of misleading—or even biologically untruthful—pictures. Images of wall-to-wall zebras, achieved by the replication of individuals animals to fill grassy spaces, may be impressive but are unrealistic and misleading. However, the removal of an out-of-focus leaf or branch can help to produce a more arresting picture which can convey the conservation message in a more convincing way.
In their quest for more striking photographs, some wildlife photographers favour a technique adopted by certain television cameramen: namely, working at very close quarters with a wide-angle lens. This is not only potentially dangerous for the photographer, but disturbing for the animal. Alternatively, the camera can be placed where animals congregate, such as a waterhole, and triggered remotely by radio control. As the human population expands and wilderness areas shrink, so pressure on many wildlife populations increases. Wildlife photographers must not allow their own activities to have a negative impact on the subjects they are trying to photograph. To this end, some countries have introduced legislation controlling the photography of rare and endangered species, notably birds at or near their nest; as well as more general guidelines for photographers.
— Heather Angel
Featured article: Pandas in China.
Bibliography
- Guggisberg, C. A. W., Early Wildlife Photographers (1977).
- Life Library of Photography: Photographing Nature (2nd edn., 1981).
- Angel, H., Photographing the Natural World (1994).
- Lanting, F., Eye to Eye: Intimate Encounters with the Animal World (1997).
- Hicks, N., Professional Nature Photography (1999).
- Hope, T., Wildlife: The World's Top Photographers and the Stories behind their Greatest Images (2002)
