Food For Thought on Nature Photography

Everyone admires the courage of Wildlife Photographers to live and work among wild animals. We have had packs of wild Lyons engaging in wild chases about 20 meters next to our tents at night in the Ngorongo - Crater. Or Leopards, that decided to take a walk in clear daylight between the tents and through Governors Camp in the Masai Mara. Nothing ever happened.....

But in the last months, a hot air balloon with 11 tourists on board exploded in the Mara, left one person dead and many wounded. There were several attacks from bandits that took place, where guards were killed and in the past few years a few light planes crashed in the Mara with nasty consequences for the passengers. The wild animals are harmless........the people with their modern toys are dangerous.

*

If you want to be successful in Wildlife Photography and acclaim great heights, you should simplify your life as much as possible. This energy should be concentrated on Wildlife Photography and the contemplation of the next shot.

*

Words lie, pictures lie. I believe a writer from the FAZ (Frankfurt daily newspaper) but not one from BILD and Co ("Enquirer"- type newspaper). That is why the name of the photographer directly under the picture is so important. First of all, it is the only way of advertisement for a photographer and secondly, I can only judge the authenticity of a picture as observer, if I know the name of the photographer. Only unreliable magazines , or magazines that do not take photographers seriously and look down upon them hide the names of their photographers in a so-called photographers´ dungeon somewhere at the end of a published issue. A wildlife photographer should put such publishings on a "Black List" and not supply them with his material.

*

A wildlife photographer will more often be led astray from the picture of the truth rather than from the truth. He photograph is only a confirmation of his pre-defined judgement.

*

W hat can you expect of human reason, when it isn’t a god given gift, but rather a coincidental late product of a never ending process.

*

Obviously the human mind is a gadget that blocks out all new ideas until you use great painful force to have these accepted.

*

Got lucky!! The tragedy of many athletes is that they do not know how to win in the beginning and when they find out how, they can’t any more, because their bodies are over 30. The acquired strength of the mind is buried by the body’s weakness.

Wildlife Photographers hardly have this problem, but do need instinct, intelligence, talent, health and luck – it would be best to have all of them, but you definitely need one of them.

*

Wildlife Photography requires the most (self-acquired) knowledge from all the different types of photography. With less than 10 – 15 years of experience you can’t hope to approach the top. Only someone who is highly motivated and has an iron will can keep that up.

*

N o amateur photographer believes that he can win Wimbledon only because he was given a first rate tennis racquet.
No amateur photographer believes he can win the Gand Prix only because he was put in a first class racing car.
No amateur photographer believes that he can give a concert only because he was set in front of a grand piano.
No amateur photographer believes that he can create great sculptures only because he was given a golden chisel.
No amateur photographer believes that he can write a book like Ernest Hemingway only because someone gave him an electric typewriter.
But (almost) every amateur photographer believes that he can take great photos if you would only give him a Nikon F5 or a Canon EOS-1.

*

Honesty in nature (wildlife) photography should be our contribution to the civilized minimum standard.

*

Nature (wildlife) photography can be photo journalism, art, photo huntings, science or manipulation.

*

You can increase the quality of your own wildlife photos immensely with a large wastepaper basket, because the only good thing on bad pictures is the joy you give your colleagues.

*

You are closest to the soul of photography when you catch the brevity of a moment and afterward still show the beholder much more of the picture than you had meant to. You cannot force wildlife photography to go in any certain direction. It just happens and that is exactly what is so fascinating. The best pictures in wildlife photography are shots full of emotion and drama, full of pleasure in life and momentous enjoyment, with boiling excitement under a seemingly smooth surface.

*

A Vision: In the year 2003 the workgroup "Authentic Wildlife Photography" will be founded within the GDT in Germany and the NANPA in USA.. The members commit themselves to not arrange, manipulate or influence motifs. "No meddling" is the motto, in order to create original wildlife documentation that triggers the "Joy of the natural" in a photographer as well as an observer and where the picture editors as well as the reader can be sure that the picture shows pure unadulterated nature. This is also the reason why the members place the sentence "Authentic nature document, not arranged or manipulated" on the frame of their slides.

*

Some people think that wildlife photography is a hobby, a pastime. In reality it is exactly the opposite, a sort of purpose in life.

*

Embarrassing: We wildlife photographers always try to keep up our image of being tough guys who march through the Savannah or tundra with only 3 pieces of rusk and an apple as food rations for weeks on end, in search of nature’s secrets and wonders.

One morning we had to leave our camp in the Masai Mara at 5 am because of important photo shootings – without breakfast, because it really was a little early for the kitchen gang. So at 8 am a second Landrover from our camp stopped right next to us and handed us two breakfast boxes filled with bread, eggs, fruit, three cans of coffee, tee and milk, through the rolled down windows. The driver had driven 15 km and been looking for us for almost two hours just so that the two wildlife photographers could have their usual breakfast. The hard life of wildlife photographers – or: My goodness, James!!!.....

*

You can take pictures of butterflies with a flash, instead of in normal daylight, but that is as if you read the Enquirer instead of the New York Times.

*

An atavistic instinct has damned the wildlife photographer to daily motion, no matter if it makes sense or not. Maybe this is a remnant from the times where hunters and collectors (our ancestors) were forced to cross great distances in order to search for prey.

*

For a life that is important to the wildlife photographer, meaning a good, successful and meaningful existence, it has been proven that what the crowd is looking for, is pointless.

*

Try to keep your equipment as small as possible. Not the wildlife photographer with the most equipment to lug through the Tundra is the most successful.....(and he certainly is not the happiest.)

*

Close ups of butterflies, mushrooms, flowers or dragonflies in the morning’s dew demand deliberation and wisdom – wildlife photography demands curiosity and the ability to react quickly.

If you want to read more, click to FOOD FOR THOUGHT II