Making those

hard choices...

...where ??

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Where you go to get your images is one of the fundamental questions that the newcomer to wildlife photography has to answer. The glib response would be that you have to go where your subjects are, but it quickly becomes apparent that there are other things to consider as well. Do you want to get the shots at all costs, or do you want to find your own subjects and get to watch them truly in the wild. Are you perhaps just making a portfolio of wildlife that you have seen or are you hoping to earn money from your images? Any of these four scenarios might alter your approach and there are many other possible circumstances that might have a bearing on the locations you choose.

There is a circuit (circus?)in the world of British nature photography that includes some wonderful places where you can get the images that you want with comparative ease. These places are so popular that often the biggest hurdle you have to overcome is framing a shot so that it doesn’t include another photographer. It is easy to be dismissive of these places, but they are popular for a reason.

Pick your dates with care and your subjects will be there, and probably behaving just as you want them to. If you need images to sell, it can be a relief just to know that you will get some shots, as there is nothing harder than sitting in a hide all day waiting for something to happen that eventually doesn’t. A day with nothing to show for your effort is harder to bear when it means no wages, actual or potential.

The downside of such honey-pots are legion, the chief one being that everybody else is taking the same pictures and finding a new perspective is very hard indeed. Getting a shot that really stands out in these circumstances really sorts the good photographers from the average in my opinion.

For me the biggest drawback is the sheer number of people likely to be there. Eventually, inconsiderate elements often end up getting all wildlife photographers a bad name because of the way they behave in front of the general public at these places. It is not inevitable, but it does happen and I try to steer clear. I won’t say that I never go, because I do. I am as keen as the next guy to get shots of difficult creatures that don’t exist in my own back yard. If you live in the centre of the country, photographing seals, for example, becomes expensive, so economically it is sensible to visit somewhere that guarantees at least the chance of a few shots.

Most of these prime locations are nature reserves of one kind or another, but this doesn’t mean that all nature reserves are good locations for photography. At the weekend,many of them are overrun by families looking for a day out of doors and the disturbance can be a severe limitation on the photographer’s chances of success.

The most difficult problem to overcome though are the hides which are  invariably designed for people who are happy to watch their wildlife at a distance through powerful binoculars and scopes. Often the windows are too narrow for a 500 mm plus lens sitting on a bean bag and they are nearly always far too high off the ground, making intimate shots like this one of a heron hunting a lake’s margins very difficult.

There is something special about finding your own subjects, studying their behaviour, and then by applying what you have learned getting the shots that you had planned and hoped for. This kingfisher was one such shot. I had wanted to get some nice close-ups of these wonderful birds for a long time. As an angler, I had seen them frequently, even on a couple of occasions having them perch on my fishing rod, and it was a wish to record such sights that encouraged me take up wildlife photography in the first place. It took me a long time to find a suitable location, where the general public would not repeatedly disturb the site. It was still another six weeks before a bird used my perches and then it was a friend that got the first shots, so I feel that I had really earned my chances when they eventually came along. They are some of my favourite pictures; not necessarily any better than could have been taken from a public hide on a nature reserve, but certainly a very satisfying achievement.

Being able to choose your viewpoint is one great advantage of working away from the public gaze on private land, but from my point of view, the chance to get really close to a wild creature that doesn’t know I am there is as good as it gets. With that comes the problem solving, the camouflage, the understanding of your quarry and seeing it behave as though human beings didn’t exist. It is a rare privilege to get as close to a shy subject like this heron as I did here and watch it going about its daily business.

When they get this close, my nose starts to itch I want to cough, I daren’t breathe and I move as slowly as I possibly can if I have to move at all. The atmosphere feels electric and is unlike anything that you experience with a row of fellow photographers chattering away next to you.

Hard choices

Long lenses

Sharp shooting

Fill-in flash

It’s not so easy

Chair hide review

Macro techniques

Creative seabirds

Going full-frame

Feeding stations

Art for art’s sake