Latest / Wildlife and Adventure Photography / Stop Taking Random Wildlife Photos Episode 4/4: From Messy Scene to Strong Photograph

Transcript

Stop Taking Random Wildlife Photos Episode 4/4: From Messy Scene to Strong Photograph · Wildlife and Adventure Photography

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's day three of a trip you've been looking forward to for months, maybe years, and finally you're getting to see a tiger, and it's just moving very quietly, very slowly through tangled branches, bushes, everything on the ground, and it's bright sunshine, so the light is changing constantly as the tiger moves from bright areas to dark areas.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: The background's messy, occasionally the tiger pauses, but it keeps on moving, and you immediately feel pressure.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the question that you ask yourself is what you do first.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: So this is part four of a four-part series to really give you some ideas about how to improve your wildlife photography and how to get stunning images, particularly if you're going on that trip of a lifetime, it might be something that you might never have the chance to do again.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And while that is a great opportunity, also it's a great way of having all the pressure put on because you know that if you if you mess up the photographs on this trip, you might not get a chance to shoot them again.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in episode one, we talked about moving beyond random shooting.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: In episode two, if you've been following, what I did was introduce a simple process for making decisions in the field.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then last week in episode three, we looked at why some photos are close but they still don't work, and that was really the diagnosis part of it, diagnosing why things aren't quite right, even though you're implementing what you think you should be implementing.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea of this episode is to bring everything together and really look at how you apply them in real-field situations, because this is where wildlife photography gets really difficult.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So this isn't about theory, it's not about editing, it's about getting the right shot, getting a good shot where you have to make decisions under pressure.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've enjoyed the series so far, uh please remember to like and subscribe.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: That makes a big difference, and most people don't.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I really appreciate it if you do.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um if you haven't been listening, why not?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So go back and listen to the others.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, so um, what I want to talk about now is why field decisions matter much more than equipment, because something that I hear a lot, or what a lot of people seem to think, is that if your results aren't what you want, if you feel they're not very good, then maybe you need to buy a new camera, maybe you need to buy the latest camera with a lot more bits on it and a lot more functionality.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact is that most of the cameras out there today, and most of the cameras that you are likely to get a hold of are perfectly adequate for more than 90% of the photography situations you're likely to be in.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna suggest that if you're not happy with the results you're getting, it probably isn't down to the camera.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, what it is likely to be more about is your decision making.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in the sort of situation I've described where you might have gone somewhere that you're only likely to go once, and now the situation has finally arrived and it's several days in, and maybe you don't have that much time left, that's when these challenges tend to kick in.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: So the sort of thing you're looking at is uncertainty, you're dealing with movement, you're dealing with imperfect conditions, you've got limited time because that tiger might easily disappear back into the bush, and that's that, you won't see it again.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it is really important that regardless of the photography gear you're using, you are able to make decisions fast and get a shot because that's what usually separates strong wildlife photograph uh photographs from weak ones.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's down to the quality of the decisions that are made in the field.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, what causes the problems?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've gone through a lot of this, but just to recap, um a lot of people react emotionally, they rush because they're excited, they may be feeling a bit stressed, they're feeling pressure, they focus too heavily on the technical settings, and they also forget about the larger visual goals.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, in episode one, I went back and went through all of that.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I discussed how a lot of photographers shoot reactively instead of intentionally.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is this sounding familiar?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this becomes really obvious when it be in chaotic situations that might be high pressure situations because there might be situations where you might not get a second chance.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And what people typically will do is when they're under pressure, they'll drop back into random shooting habits.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So field awareness is really, really important.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna run through um a few scenarios here and just talk about how to handle them basically.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the first one is the temptation to just shoot immediately.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we could be looking at the kind of situation that I've described, or you could be walking along the edge of woodland early in the morning, a fox appears from the trees, and immediately you get an adrenaline spike, and most photographers will raise the camera, fire bursts, and they might be adjusting settings while they're shooting.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, what they're doing is chasing movement.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the thing to do here is to just slow the situation down mentally, and I've given you a process, but I'm gonna just step through it again.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: How to deal with this.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, what actually matters first thing is your subject.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is the fox in this case doing anything interesting?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is its posture strong?
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Are its eyes visible?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I jokingly said to someone I was gonna do a book of animals' backsides because often when I'm away in Africa, countries in Africa, that's a lot of what I see.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so while that might be an interesting topic for a book, um, it's not really what I'm going for.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So be critical about what you're seeing.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, having looked at the subject and whether or not it's a good position to shoot the subject, what's going on behind the fox?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Are there bright patches?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Are there distracting branches?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have competing shapes?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: What about the light?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is the light helping?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: What happens if you wait a couple of seconds to improve the angle?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's timing.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is this the strongest moment, or are you just reacting?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So going back to what we looked at in episode two, this is exactly why having a field process matters.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I took you through that in episode two.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, without a field process, photographers try to solve everything simultaneously, and then that's too much, so people panic a little bit, and you just kind of default to type, you default to random shooting.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, good what good photographers will do is delay shooting, and what they're looking at very briefly is subject separation.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, how well can you isolate the subject?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're looking at posture.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Is the animal doing something interesting?
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or if it is just you'll get in the back end of it, it's digging for something, probably not the best time to shoot.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: What about the light?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Where it is at the moment, is that light good?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Does it help?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Or if it's moving, is it likely to move into better light?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what about timing?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes the difference between an average image and a strong one is just a few seconds of patience, and this is, as I've said, something that professional wildlife photographers will you'll you'll see them doing.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: They're not diving in and photographing straight away.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Often they're not even holding the camera up initially, they're looking at what's going on.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you handle decision making under pressure?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is all about setting priorities.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: What strong photographers will do is filter distractions very quickly, they're looking to simplify the scene, they're identifying weak opportunities and so not shooting those.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they also recognize when conditions are unlikely to improve.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, another thing that professional photographers will do is not take photographs sometimes.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that they know that what they're gonna get is not going to work.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the point?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: From the emotional side, it's about slowing everything down, so don't panic, stay calm, keep calm and carry on to use the uh British Second World War um phrase, and avoid tunnel vision, avoid being just so fixated on the subject, you exclude everything else.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And often what happens with wildlife photography, there's a false sense of urgency gets created because you don't know what the animal's going to do.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Animals are unpredictable, and sometimes photographers feel they just constantly have to shoot and grab as much as they can.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: But what that what happens when you do that is that that urgency reduces awareness, and it's awareness that really sets you up for a good shot.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, going back to last week's episode, episode three, this is the scenario that you have when you're it's almost good, and the photos happen because photographers haven't slowed down long enough to recognize the problems, they're not looking at they're basically not following the checklist properly that I I gave you in in uh episode two.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So what they end up with is distracting backgrounds, the timing's weak, they miss something, they shoot something ordinary, and then they miss something really good because they're looking at the picture on the back of the camera, they're chimping, in other words.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: Or the posture of the animal is all good, or you've got its back end if that's your your thing, or there's unclear emphasis on the subject, the subject's getting lost in other elements in the frame.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you simplify a scene?
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: What are the what what are the questions that you ask before you even lift the camera up?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Key questions are what matters most, what weakens this image, and is this situation improving or getting worse?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're really important questions to be asking because if you are clear on those, that very much drives your decision-making process about whether or not now is the time to shoot.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And look, it might be that that that's that's definitely um a possibility, but in a lot of situations, often waiting a few seconds, or if the animal's not it's sort of reasonably happy where it is, just spending time with it.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: So uh this is a process of filtering and it becomes easier with experience, and it it's also easier when you are intentional when you have an intentional practice that you're using.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So the next scenario is choosing not to shoot, and uh sometimes the strongest decision you can make, the strongest choice you can make is not taking the photograph.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So this could be encountering um a lion in the Serengeti, it's harsh harsh midday light, but you've got quite a cluttered background.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's sort of bushes and lots of um long grass, there's maybe rocks and things in the background as well, and it's pretty static because it it would be, it's hot, and the lines just lying there, it's um in a tiny bit of shade, but it's still very hot, and really nothing interesting is going on.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of photographers will still shoot, and they'll shoot a lot, because they've come to see a lion and they don't see a lion every day, so to them it's a rare experience.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: For them, the encounter feels exciting because they're seeing a lion in Africa, which fair enough can be exciting, it is exciting, and they're afraid of missing the opportunity.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that all they're doing is documenting a sighting.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is not a strong photograph.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Strong photographers are constantly evaluating whether or not a scene has real photographic potential, and what they're choosing to do is to walk away if they are coming up against certain situations, so they might be a bad environment, it could be a distracting scene, the behavior is really weak, the light is poor, there's no emotional impact.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are in the serengeti in the middle of the day and a lion is lying there panting, not a lot is happening.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember being actually in um a Tosha in Namibia, um it was afternoon, it was hot, and there was a male lion on his own, un lying sleeping under under the shade of a tree, and there must have been probably a dozen cars all trying to fight with one another a little bit to get a good view and get photographs.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, this was nothing, it was a nothing shot, nothing situation, and the best thing they could have done was to just go away and let the lion have a bit of a kip and um uh you know recover for hunting in the evening.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this also comes back to something else that I talk about a lot, and that is pre-trip preparation, it's learning about the behaviors that you're likely to see when they are likely to happen.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in the case of a lion hunting, or in fact, a lion doing much of anything, it tends to be dawn and dusk, they tend to operate more in those hours.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, some of it the sun is up, often you're getting into twilight or night, and that's when they're more active.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's disappointing if you if you're only sighting of the line is when it's asleep.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you get a picture just to record it, but that's that's pretty much it.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna get an exciting photograph in that kind of situation.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: So going back to episode one, this is about as a photographer, stop shooting randomly and starting to become more selective naturally.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So, selective list isn't selectiveness isn't a limitation, it's a refinement.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I I'm probably lucky because how I learned this was growing up with film, and certainly on a trip, I remember the first time I went to Africa, I went to Kenya, and I can carry so many rolls of film.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I can so they're all 36 exposure.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've got one body, so I'm shooting 36 at a time.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then I've got to change a role, which takes a couple of minutes, and then I go again, I've got the same problem.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, in that sort of situation, you start to get very choosy about when you're taking those frames because you know when you're down to the last two or three frames, that if you use them up and then something really amazing happens while you're changing film, you've lost it.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the opposite to what we have today, where you can blast away.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, I've just just bought a new camera and the memory card is absolutely massive.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I could happily just shoot all day until the battery runs out and get thousands, literally thousands of images.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: But how many of them are any good?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I'm not selective about what I'm taking, I can guarantee if I've shot thousands of images, most of them are going to be not worth a second look, frankly.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's what you're doing, if you're going away and shooting thousands, I'm gonna suggest that you maybe stop and go back to episode one and have a listen, because I very much doubt that every one of those, or even the majority of those images, is that good when you sit down and look at it.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is about refining what you're doing, and that was really the purpose of looking at episode one.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, a really important thing to build when you're approaching wildlife photography is building situational awareness.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is about anticipation, and it comes back to preparation again.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's about reading behavior, it's knowing when animals are active, the animals that you want to see, so you know straight away when the best time to go looking for them is.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's recognizing patterns.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there are cues and clues that something's about to happen.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: It depends on the animals.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there aren't, but in other animals there are.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about understanding what those are and recognizing them.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: And this all takes you into predicting movement.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: And once you can predict movement, you know when to take a shot.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can start to see that something's about to happen.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So you're now ready to go and ready to uh maybe do a short burst of something happening.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's about understanding environments.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the point about all of this is that the more awareness you have, the less likely you are to panic, get that really that real sense of urgency to just take a shot of anything.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and because sometimes when we're hitting the shutter button, we feel like something's happening, and in fact, we're just wasting our time.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: The bottom line with all of this is that the more photographers observe, the less they the less reactive they are, that they're more thoughtful, they're more deliberate about what they're photographing.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you watch experienced wildlife photographers, you are going to see that they spend a significant amount of time just watching what's going on.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what they're looking for are a few things.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's repeated movement patterns, they're looking at behaviors because it's as some of these patterns are repeated, so you once you recognize them, you can then predict what's going on, what's going to happen.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: There might well be rhythms to the behavior.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I remember um some birds flying and kind of flying at one another, then separating, coming back again.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, that was in Africa.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a big one for bird photography, but it was there weren't any big things wandering about.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're also looking for environmental cues.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it is time of day, it may be reading spore.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you might know that there is a predator, for example, in the area, but you're not quite sure where.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do you do?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can't you go and look where the prey animals are because if they're going to hunt, that's where they're going to be.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that in turn shows you where you've you're likely to find points of interaction, so areas where an animal is likely to start hunting.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is why in places like Africa you are a lot better off going in dry season because most of the animals are going to be around water holes.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas in your if you're in wet season, where there's a lot of water about, a lot of vegetation, everything's growing, everything's green, the prey animals will all disperse, and that means it's really hard to find predators if that's what you're looking for.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this is really important in determining anticipation.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's about timing, composition, positioning, patience, what I spoke about in episode two.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And once you understand this, the field process is much faster, and it's it gets much more intuitive because you're practicing the same thing, you're running through the same sequence each time, and it starts to become second nature.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of consciously analysing every variable, good wildlife photographers begin recognizing opportunities naturally, but this only happens through intentional observation.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about stopping, not feeling panicked about the hitting the shutter button as soon as you can, and deliberately observing what's going on.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just gonna recap the whole of this series and what this process was about.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: So in episode one, I spoke about intentionality.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is about strong wildlife photographs at start, or the process to creating them starts when photographers stop reacting randomly.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is about not acting randomly, it's about stopping, it's pausing, it's looking, it's being intentional.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Episode two, we looked at the decision-making process to reduce chaos, to reduce um the tension, to get away from the overwhelm if you try and remember everything at once.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you try and do that, you're not gonna remember everything at once, and you're just going to stress, and all you will do is drop back to doing random photographs.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we looked at diagnosis, and that was about looking why at why images almost work, but there's something still wrong.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, this is um this is all part of the learning process, and in my own opinion.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Most photographers spend the whole of their life as a photographer, let's call it that, learning.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because I believe there's always something new to be learned.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: There's new technology comes out.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just uh moving on to a new camera, so I'm having to learn things about how what that does differently because it's a switching technology for me.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I get inspired by other people's work and I'm thinking about how they do certain things.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always learning in the field.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: I try and learn from if I can spend time with a good guide, I'm trying to learn from them so that I can start to read some of the signs as well and not be reliant on other people.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So learning is absolutely essential, and this is where we start making uh the distinction between or identifying, I should say, why a particular image is almost there but not quite, and then what we can do to change that.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's all the way there.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then in this episode, hopefully, uh, what's come across is that this is more about execution, it's about how everything combines in real-world situations, and how these essentially are layers that reinforce one another.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, intentionality without process is just hesitation.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying to be intentional, but you can't remember what you're supposed to do next.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: Process without diagnosis, without looking and assessing the situation, what's the animal doing, what how does the situation work photographically, what's the light like?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what's the background doing?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: If I've got a busy background, can I use depth of field, for example, to um soften it to the point where it's not distraction?
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: But process without diagnosis, you you just repeat the mistakes that you were making before, and then diagnosis without execution is just theory, and to me, the while you know, photography the theory of anything is fine, but if you want to do it, you've got to do it.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, theory is only as good, or only goes as far as giving you uh the next steps, but you've got to implement them.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, hopefully, you're implementing things I'm suggesting.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you want more help, I have a wildlife course.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you'll need to just check on the website when that's running, but it's a six-week course, so and that um includes self-paced modules, one a week, four lessons, and then live sessions, three live sessions as we go through the course.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it gives you that combination, and there's a private group as well where you can share work, ask questions, um, all that kind of thing.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, just to um summarize wildlife photography becomes much easier when you stop chasing photographs and start recognizing opportunities.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, that's the big shift.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about chasing situations, it's about getting ahead of them, it's knowing what to look for that tells you, yep, something good is coming up.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's about being ready, it's about understanding your camera, understanding settings, all of that stuff too, but not fiddling with settings all the way you should be really watching what's going on.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, a lot of photographers chase wildlife encounters emotionally.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: But where you're going to get strong images is where you are coming from awareness, it's coming from patience, you're coming from position, you're able to anticipate, and you're really clear about which shots are worth taking.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, this taking so this isn't about luck, this isn't about randomness, this is about improving the odds in your favour.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's kind of like um the more you practice, the luckier you get, if you like.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think there was a golf golfer who said that once, but it's um it's quite a good quote.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: So, what I suggest to you is certainly practice this as much as you can because photographers will often improve dramatically once they stop trying to force every encounter into photograph and start learning because some scenes need time, some need movement, some are never they never become strong images.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, you're you know, it's an encounter, you've seen it, maybe enjoy the moment with that animal without having the camera there, because the images you're going to get are not worth it.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I was on a hide in Finland a few months ago, and um I I was taking as much as I could, but obviously the light's going down, so I'm overnight.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And at one stage we had some wolverines come right in front of the hide, but it was I just it was far too dark for me to get anything.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I just enjoyed being near these animals.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've never been near Wolverines before, and so it was um an experience to be with them, and I think that's sometimes the approach that you have to take because it's the only one that makes any sense.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: So to just round this whole series up, um the pathway, if you like, from maybe where you're starting, I don't know where you're starting, obviously.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: But if you are if you're somebody who's just really starting out, you don't really know where to start, and you think the best place to start is to shoot as many things as possible, will hopefully move you from randomness to clarity.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the purpose of episode one, from reaction to intention in episode two, from confusion to process in episode three, and then from luck to consistency in this episode.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: So the I guess the the core idea of this whole short series of of um podcasts is to make the point that strong wildlife photography is very rarely, rarely accidental.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: There are always those situations where you just get lucky, a situation happens and you're ready, but the people who I've seen make the most of it are the people who already know what they're doing, so they know how to make the most of that situation and they come back with absolutely stunning photographs.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the way to start shooting strong wildlife photographs is to really build your skills up through awareness, decision making, selectiveness, observation, and patience.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm going to leave you with a thought on all of this stuff, uh, what I would say, and I think this is the good news, to be honest, um, it's simply that once you start seeing wildlife photography this way, once you start implementing it, practicing, and and do this at home, do it with if you've got animals around, shoot those, photograph birds.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: Birds are great because they're pretty much everywhere and they're not cooperative, it's like shooting wildlife, and they're actually they can be quite tricky subjects as well.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: So shoot those.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But once you start seeing wildlife photography this way, you can't really go back.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that is probably, in my opinion, the the strongest argument for working through these steps.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully, this has been useful to you.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in the next episode, I'm gonna do something different.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've got some new um, I'm gonna actually talk about some traps to avoid when you start when you get started, perhaps when you're a bit older, and the temptation there is you've got cash.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, and then uh yeah, there's all sorts of fun to be had there.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: So that'll be next week.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it for this week.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you found that useful.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Please remember to like and subscribe.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're very welcome to subscribe to the channel, um, as in buy me a coffee from time to time, all that stuff is very welcome.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, yeah, please hit like and subscribe because that really is appreciated.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy your photography, and I'll speak to you next time.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.