More years ago than I care to remember, I signed up for an outdoor photography class sponsored by the then Colorado Division of Wildlife. Two well-known Colorado wildlife/conservation photographers conducted three nights of classroom instruction covering fundamental camera operations — exposure, composition, lighting basics, and so on. That was followed by a daylong field trip to the Denver Zoo to photograph live animals, then an overnight expedition to Rocky Mountain National Park to address landscape, wildflower, and macro photography.
The instructors stressed the fact that great photographs are made, not taken, and while good equipment, skill, and technique are obviously necessary, the difference between a ho-hum wildlife shot and a great one often relies more on preparation, timing, and attention to detail than all the others combined. Okay, and sometimes pure luck.
Surprisingly perhaps, fancy equipment may be the least important. After all, some amazing photographs are made with cellphones and inexpensive point-and-shoot cameras. Make no mistake, high-quality lenses and camera bodies can make things easier, but they can be pricey and carry learning curves of their own.
Preparation, timing, and attention to detail can be much more critical than you think. Intentionally finding a specific animal to photograph requires specialized knowledge of their individual habits, habitat, food sources, seasonal behavior traits, migration routes, and how all of those elements change through the year and even from day to day. The same goes for songbirds, shorebirds, waterfowl, game birds, or birds of prey. Research and scouting are crucial if you want to find, let’s say, a wood duck drake in mating plumage, a buck deer in velvet, a cow elk with a calf, or a bull in rut. When do the pasqueflowers bloom in Rocky Mountain National Park — and where? What time do you have to be there to catch the best light? What kind of lens are you going to use to shoot it?
And timing is everything. Herbert Keppler, the world-famous photo magazine publisher once remarked: “f8, and be there.” Being there at precisely the right time with your camera ready is essential and requires planning. Here’s a case in point: I’d been shooting photographs of a certain bull elk in Rocky Mountain National Park for more than five years, but despite hundreds of shots of him, I’d never gotten quite the one I had envisioned. He sometimes frequented an alder stand that framed a small patch of green grass surrounded by a larger circle of gold grasses that kind of fluoresced when struck by the late day sun. I’d run up there every September afternoon whenever I had the chance hoping that one day he’d walk into that Winner’s Circle, as I came to call it. Then, late one afternoon, September 23, 2020, he did exactly that, and I was there with my camera at the ready. Adding a further stroke of luck, he bugled, and I had my shot.
Dennis Smith is a freelance outdoors writer and photographer whose work appears nationally. He lives in Loveland.