What to look for in wildlife photography

Until a few weeks ago I knew very little about wildlife photography. I have to be honest. However I believe that I over the past years have developed a very good eye for photography. Compositions in particular. I have trained my eye to automatically look for compositions. Even when walking around without my camera, I often find myself trying to see places in photos. Does it make any sense at all? Basically I imagine what the scene would look like inside of my camera. I’m not saying that I’m just absolutely incredible at composing my photos. Simply that I have trained my eye to do so. And I think that gave me an advantage when it came to wildlife photography, opposite a complete rookie in the photography field. Though for me, wildlife photography was a completely new genre, I think I quite quickly got the hold of it. Therefor, in this post I discuss what to look for in wildlife photography.

What to look for in wildlife photography

This photo is no prime example, as for me at least, it was pretty straight forwards. I believe this was on the second day of my trip, and instead of simply trying to catch the leopard, I tried to do so in a way, that would balance the photo. The two trees on either side of the leopard help create balance, and a sort of frame. In this case, I believe it works very well. We had some very difficult light during this shoot, but somehow it ended up quite well as the light coming from behind the light helps create some separation from the rest of the photo. Besides from that it is a straight forward photo. However my advise, in a situation like this - don’t focus solely on the animal. Look at the surroundings and see how you can create even more interest.

After the first day where I had simply fired away at everything that moved, on the second day I slowly started looking for patterns. I tried incorporating some of the compositional techniques that I know from landscape photography, and instead of simply having the animal in focus, I tried to place the animal in a way, that would show the full glory of the jungle. Of course, in wildlife photography as well as landscapes, people look for different things, and these are just some of the tools I used to make my photos more interesting.

Lines played an important part. I started looking for lines, either leading towards my focal point, or in some other way helping to balance the photo and create symmetry.

As you can see in these three photos two of them are very similar, whereas one is completely different. However the main part, besides from the animals are the lines. In two of the photos the road works as a leading line, leading the eye of the viewer towards the animal. In the other photo, the two trees create symmetry as well as a frame in the photo, and thereby a completely different outcome. Had I cropped out one of the trees, the outcome would have been entirely different.

What to look for in wildlife photography

In this case the thick fod really helped create some separation between our subject and the background, giving the feeling of a lot of empty space. There is a clear line that separates our subject from the background, and besides from that the colors match very well together. Could I redo this photo however, I probably would. I don’t think that the balance is as good as the other photos as there is nothing to encompass the subject as well as very little if any symmetry.

What to look for in wildlife photography

This is very different to all of the other photos, and in this case, what makes this photo for me is the light. The way the light hits the wild dog as well as the tree trunk gives so much more interest to the photo than if there had been no light. And that’s why I talk so much about light. Having interesting light can take your photo from good to great. Even though it is just a little bit of light entering from the left side, it makes a huge difference.

What to look for in wildlife photography

This last photo is just to show that even though I talk about composition and light a lot, even in a photo like this where the subject is filling the frame, we have a great outcome. There is not made use og any compositional tools except for a central composition but still this works very well. The colors compliment each other very well, where we have green and blue as the primary colors, and the orange to create some contrast. We even have slightly red tones at the back of the tiger.

So, what to look for in wildlife photography? I guess it’s more like what I look for. First of all, I look for an interesting photo. Something that makes me go wow. I look for shapes, lines, frames, symmetry, and whatever can help me encompass my subject in a way that creates interest for the viewer. Besides, I have color combinations in mind, I think about which colors work well together, and try to look out for those and I’m out in the field. And of course, light. Interesting light can make a boring scene seem interesting. If you manage to combine light, colors and composition, you have a winner.