I’ve been home from Africa for two months now (has it really been that long?) and finally, yesterday, I finished culling the collection, and completed naming the files. It was a big chore; I cut 13,000 images down to less than 1000. But the process gave me time to go through the photos, reflect on the experiences they represent, and above all, figure out why some work photos work and some don’t.
In my Winter Newsletter I wrote a brief article on how to make an image more than a portrait, and as is often the case, writing it got me thinking: What is it about a wildlife photograph that makes it interesting?
Sure, a tight, sharp portrait of an animal in good light can be beautiful to look at, but aside from aesthetics (and the animal itself), the image may not actually be very interesting. By “interesting”, I mean: does the viewer learn something?
The Tight Shot
In a previous post on this blog, I wrote that you don’t need to be close to make good wildlife photographs, and while showing habitat and place is related to making an effective image, you don’t HAVE to pull back to make an image interesting and educational. A well-composed tight photograph might be just the ticket to getting your point across.
Here is an example I also shared in my newsletter piece:
The two images above were made within moments of each other. In the Kalahari, my clients and I encountered a small group of Kudu. Kudu are large antelope that live primarily in brushy environments. The top image is a clean, sharp portrait in decent light. It’s fine and it tells the viewer what the face of a female kudu looks like, but not much else.
The second photo however, though similarly composed, has vegetation partly obscuring the kudu. I noted above that kudu are creatures of the brush, and they rarely venture out into the open. Seeing and photographing one in the clear may make for a clean photo but it’s not at all representative of their lives.
That’s why I much prefer the second image. You still get the important elements from the first shot, the way a kudu looks, but you also get a sense of the habitat in which they live, and perhaps an idea of how challenging they can be to photograph! There is a story, several in fact, tied up in that second image, while the first shows just one. The second is, in other words, interesting.
Here is another example:
Like the kudu above, these two shots were made within seconds of one another of the same zebra foal. Top shot: boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. It’s so boring, I almost culled it from the collection, but decided to hold onto it as an example of what a boring photo looks like. (Seriously, that’s why I still have it).
The second shot however, shows the same foal a moment later when its mother stepped forward and lowered her head to graze. Though the main subject (the foal) is partially obscured, you suddenly get a lot more information. The viewer gets a sense of how zebra stripes interact to confuse predators, they get a sense of the foal being shy, and how the parent is protective, defending its young from the unknown viewers (the photographer).
That’s a lot to go on in one, tight portrait. I’ll call that a win.
The Medium Shot
Mid-distance or mid-composition shots too can either be effective, or not, at telling a story about the animal. Here is another example using Kudu from Botswana.
These are two males, separated by a few days and many miles. The first shot, I made along the Chobe River as a big bull stepped out of the shrubs and across a meadow. He was out in the open, visible from horns to hooves. At the moment I celebrated the rare opportunity to make images of one of these guys without all the brush obscuring him. Upon reflection, I realized it’s not really a very good image!
The second shot is far better, in my opinion. Though both are mid-distance portraits, the second educates the viewer about kudu habitat and the photographic challenges involved. Despite (or maybe because of) the harsh light and dark shadows, I still REALLY like the second photo. It’s got character and interest. Here, I used the difficult light and location to my advantage, and it resulted in a better image than might I might have created under “better” conditions.
And similarly with leopards:
Like the kudu, leopards are creatures of vegetation. In the forest, their spotted coats blend almost seamlessly into the sun-dappled underbrush. Seeing one in the open, is a rare and wonderful thing, but it’s hardly representative of their lives. As my group and I departed the Savute area of Chobe National Park on our way to the Okavango, we spent a solid two hours tracking leopards. Finally, after many lost trails, we found a female and her older cub. The cub was 6 or 7 months old, and likely hunting on his own. Both images above show the same young leopard. The first is a portrait where we initially found them laying out in the shade, in the open. The second shows him after he’d pulled back into the deeper vegetation on the clearing edge.
While I like both images, the second one certainly tells the viewer more about his life. For me, that counts for a lot.
The Power of Pulling Back
While using the conditions, as above, to your photographic advantage can greatly impact the success or failure of your image, one of the easiest ways to create story and a sense of place in your photographs is by pulling back.
Here are two images, made within a few moments of each other, of a herd of tsesebe in the Savute Marsh in Chobe National Park. The top image, is a medium range shot showing a few of the animals. The stormy light was kind of bland, the backdrop pastel. The photograph is… fine. It’s not as boring as the first of the zebra portraits, but it’s nothing to get excited about.
The second photo shows the same herd of tsesebe but with much more context. The wider field of view shows virga falling in the background, the textured storm clouds, and a greater sense of the sunset light. Though the light on the animals themselves is still dull, and the tsesebe lack fine detail, that doesn’t matter because the story in the image is no longer just about the animals, but about the early rainy season on the savannas of southern Africa.
Here is another example with a less dramatic pull-back:
Again, both images were made within moments of one another. These two were made in the upper Okavango Delta as a small group of wildebeest walked past, first thing in the morning. The first shot is one of a series of motion blurs I was playing with. My verdict on that one, is that it’s fine. It shows some motion which I like, and has nice light. The second photo has multiple layers however, both compositionally, and implied. First, it has a clear setting. If you’ve been to the Okavango, you’ve undoubtedly seen places like this. Termite mounds play an integral role in the ecosystem of the Okavango, as the hillocks created by their construction, create literal islands during the flood season. Those areas are important areas of reprieve for animals like the wildebeest on the right. Same light, same animal, but a much more complete story of the place.
The Wide View – Why it Works
I recently spoke at a wildlife photography club in Denver, Colorado. It was a great evening where I spoke about Alaska and judged their monthly photo contest. The contest showed a truly exceptional collection of images, divided into scenic, wildlife, and captive animals. Ironically, the best wildlife image in the series was entered in the “landscape” category. It contained a pair of Bald Eagles atop a lone dead tree with dramatic snow-covered mountains in the background. It was lit beautifully, showed place and behavior, everything a good wildlife image should be. I still wonder why it was submitted under landscape…
The point of that anecdote is that melding animals into the scene shows a lot more about both the place and the creature. It benefits both.
Here are a few images from Africa where I feel like I accomplished that:
Definitely one of my favorite images of the trip is this one of a giraffe crossing a plain recovering from drought. The animal is in nice light, the dramatic cloudscape and the multiple layers of habitat provide drama, but there is even more. Botswana, as many of you may have heard, suffered a two-year drought that had incredible impacts on the wildlife, people, and livestock of the country. The grassy shrublands that dominate northern and central Botswana were reduced to a sandy mess. When I visited back in December it looked like the drought had broken and rains were arriving across the country. This shows the story of that recovery, if you know to look for it: barren sandy ground, but also fresh green growth on the acacias and distant trees, and above all, virga and rain falling in the background. I like this image for what it represents: hope for better times to come.
The zebra migration in Botswana gets underway as the first rains of the season arrive. During my November/December safaris, these striped horses are near-constant companions as we both move south toward the Kalahari. In my images, I wanted to provide context for their place in the landscape. The image above, with clouds, but hot sun, tells the viewer a bit about the time of year and day, and the place. It’s an effective environmental portrait.
This second photo is a more dramatic pull-back, and could easily be used as a next step in the story from the first image. Here there is clear storm light, dark rain clouds in the background indicate this is clearly the start of the rainy season, and the vegetation has gone from sandy to green. Thinking of individual images as part of a series is an important part of image-making (and story-telling) but one often forgotten as photographers concentrate on stand-alone shots.
Variety is the Spice and All That
There is nothing wrong with tight, sharp, beautiful portraits. And as part of a larger series, they are very important. A tight shot looks nice and provides a sense of, well, humanity to an animal. The right image can help us feel like we are making eye contact with a species of wildlife we may never encounter ourselves. That’s important.
But it shouldn’t be the end.
It took me a long time to figure out what photographers were saying when they said things like “tell stories” with your images. But after years of experimenting and playing, and frankly, thinking about the lives of the animals I’m photographing, I know what it means. The stories aren’t just what the animal is doing, but also where they live, how they live, how they interact, and the challenges they face. The right photographs can tell those stories.
Think beyond the single image, and consider what’s important to tell, and what can be told with your scene. Make the tight shots, but don’t stop there. Move on to the next composition, and think deeply about the animal and how what you are seeing represents their lives.
That’s how you make your images speak.
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