One of my favorite prints on my wall is technically "bad." The shutter speed was too slow, so the flock of sandpipers turned into soft, sweeping brushstrokes of grey against a crashing wave. It looks like a Japanese ink painting.
There is a quiet misconception that wildlife photography is simply about long lenses and fast shutter speeds. Many people believe that if you buy a big enough camera and sit in a blind long enough, you will eventually come home with a "good shot." Artofzoo Miss F Torrentl
Turn off the rapid-fire "spray and pray" mode. Slow down. Compose. Feel. One of my favorite prints on my wall is technically "bad
Featured Image Suggestion: A backlit deer at sunrise with rim lighting, or an abstract blur of birds in flight over water. Many people believe that if you buy a
The difference between a snapshot of a deer and a work of art is often the quality of the gold hour haze filtering through the mist. I have learned to put my camera down during the harsh midday sun. Instead, I wait. I wait for the soft, directional light of dawn that turns a leopard’s fur into liquid gold, or the deep, moody blues of twilight that silhouette a heron standing like a statue.
Don't delete the blurs. Don't delete the silhouettes. Don't delete the photo where a branch covers the eagle's face but the talons are razor sharp. In nature art, suggestion is often more powerful than total clarity. Finally, the most important element of wildlife art is intention. When you hang a photo of an elephant on your wall, you aren’t just decorating. You are building a shrine.
To achieve this, you have to get low. Eye level is a documentary angle; ground level is an artistic one. When your lens is in the mud, looking across the water at a crocodile, the texture of the water’s surface tension and the reptile’s rough back become abstract shapes. It moves beyond "what" the animal is, to "how" the animal feels. Nature is not a studio. Animals do not hold poses.