Getting The Perfect Shot
I want to talk about how to get that perfect nature photograph—the one you’ve always dreamed of. Many photographers are unsatisfied with their landscape or animal photographs. Why? They think something’s missing. Like the eagle nest in a shot of a soaring eagle. Or cubs near the shot of the mama fox.
The problem is that these photographers also think that getting the perfect eagle action picture or the charging bison picture is a matter of luck rather than of preparation.
It actually has a lot to do with research and patience.
Let’s say you’re interested in bird photography and want to get a great shot of a group of colorful birds in the Costa Rican forest. The first step would be to know when they migrate there, so you can predict when you’ll find them all together. But then you’ll want to know what times of day they feed.
Then research, from the comfort of your Lazy Boy, the specific colors of the birds, what light factors and what shooting angles would work best. Would the birds look best in flight, against a sky blue background? In direct light, or in low dawn haze? After this, you’ll want to sketch out what kind of composition would best fill the frame…before you get there!
Finally, you realize that you’re going to have to get up at 4am in hopes of getting a shot of the macaws at dawn. And you’ll have to drive a few hours into the rainforest just to get there ‘on time’…which is often early morning. Maybe the first day you go, no birds will appear! And the second time a fluke rainstorm will roll in.
Keep trying—no one said bird photography would be easy!
So next time you dismiss that great eagle action picture or that charging bison picture, consoling yourself with the idea that the photographer was just lucky, think again. YOU could get such a great shot, 9 times out of 10, IF you plan for it. The photographers that go out of their way to prepare… put themselves right in luck’s way.
Their images are the ones that we remember.
