Fun and
practical wildlife photography practice
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| This will let you know if you are ready to shoot the real thing. It will also help you get used to your equipment, composition, natural lighting and just tune you up in general. You should become the worst critic of your images. |
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Start in your own backyard !
(Remember to keep the hands of man out of your images)
| If you are a complete beginner start off with a pet dog or cat in the backyard. Take some candid shots, not posed shots! |
| Having no pets, I am using this wild Red Fox kit from a local golf course as example for one of the types of images you should be trying to equal or better. From the true pets you can advance to some of the neighborhood half wild cats. I'm talking about the homeless ones that are wary of you and won't allow close approach. Good practice! Most communities have them. If you can't get good images of these animals, don't expect to get the wild ones. |
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Now lets progress a little to a semi-wild animal. (LOL) If you or your neighbors don't have squirrels, most city parks do! If you try to get an image in the city park, that will be some excellent practice and a little more difficult than you might think. Again, you are trying to equal or better images like this one. This was taken in my backyard, from a bedroom window. Thats called a blind! Take note that I even used a tripod in the bedroom. A tripod is essential to good sharp images. |
Birds are a special case.To constantly get good images of small birds you normally need telephoto lens and shoot out of blinds. I picked a Robin because they are a little larger and very common across the country. Watch their habits and routines. Notice that you can't come up on one but if you are already there, they don't pay a lot of attention to you. Thats a big key to photographing birds. Once you know when and where they will be, you can be there first and ready for them. You can use the house or even a tent as a blind. If the Robins feed in a certain area, try a pup tent and lay down to get a wonderful image on their own level. |
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Most cities or communities have a small lake or pond somewhere that the "kiddies can go and feed the ducks" This is a great place to get experience with shooting birds and water. I took this Mallard at one of these little lakes.Now it's really getting to be fun! |
| Now the really easy part! You think so? Go to the nearest zoo and try to equal or better this image by Amy Newcomb. She is a student photographer and took this image at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.. The zoo is a great place to practice on various size, shape and color animals. But remember you are keeping the hands of man out of the image for practice. Also you are trying to get an interesting and correctly exposed image. |  |
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Ok, now you have got the practice in, had some fun doing it, lets get out to the national parks and put this experience to use. You can join the crowd going after the big guys. This is a sample that I shot the only time I was in Yellowstone National park. You see if you really worked and learned through these practice drills, you are now a senior. You might even have that thirst to work at getting the cliche park images out of the way so you can graduate on into the true adventures of photographing the wildlife in the wilderness. |
| Its all up to you! If you really had fun, worked, learned, and applied the knowledge you should have gained from every image taken; Then this image I took on the edge South Park, in Colorado can symbolize the sunset on routine cliche images and the sunrise on real adventure and wildlife photography. |
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