Attend Workshops to Master the Art of Wildlife Photography!

Photography has the power to change the world. Wildlife photography workshops teach how to photograph animals and birds in their natural habitats. It requires many skills such as the ability to manage a multitude of lighting situations, hand-eye coordination, and composition, follow the focus, patience, good exposure technique etc. Exposure technique is very important as animals usually are found in a multitude of lighting situations, and each animal demands your understanding in the best way to attain the correct exposure. An example should be provided here to make the matter clear to you. So, for instance, at sunrise and sunset, you might have a chance of encountering any of different types of lighting. Front lighting is regarded as the easiest way to expose as the direct and low-angled light is poured in most of the areas of your subject which would be in shadow. Time plays vital role wildlife photography. A picture, taken 2 or 3 hours before the sunset will definitely differ from a picture taken just 30 minutes before the sunset. And time assumes importance mainly because of the lighting. Light keeps changing throughout the day.

The light coming from the side is another feature of illumination at sunrise and sunset. It creates vocal textures, long shadows, the alluring interplay of light and dark. Side-lighting sometimes throws real challenges to built-in camera meters because if the shadows are too many in number, then the meter lightens them in its goal of making the scene middle toned. Perhaps this is not desired by a photographer as shadows are usually dark relative to highlight.

Now let’s move to backlighting. Backlighting offers one of the most interesting types of lighting photographer dreams of. Some moments such as sunrise and sunset are really fleeting. It is very challenging to capture a picture at these moments because they last merely for few seconds. Therefore, you should be very careful and prepared for the very moment.

You would pinpoint the area in the frame (which you want to be properly exposed) with the help of a handheld spot meter. A Precise spot-metering capability of handheld meter makes the photographer able to read the scene exactly by selecting the middle-toned portion of your subject. Most of the digital SLRs have a feature of spot metering mode. But they read only 3-5% of the scene instead of the much prominent 1-degree angle that only Sekonic meters can read. If your limitation of reading is limited to 3-5%, the zone that is going to be measured may appear too large. Even you may find it including more than the middle-toned area. Good exposure depends on the ability to read the middle tone, middle gray of a subject. You need time to develop sensitivity to light which helps you to identify the areas of your subject. When you are able to zero in on what middle gray is looking like, you will get spot-on exposure.

Sometimes you may find your subject moving too fast to be captured. Then what should you do? In such cases, it is quite impossible to take a precise reading because the light and subjects are continuously changing every second. An experienced photographer, in this situation will take a spot reading on the middle-toned area of the background. The reading will be accurate if the area is getting the same light as the subject. When it is difficult to handle metering mode to handle, you should switch to the incident mode on the handheld meter. This incident reading analyses the ambient light coming from the sky and also falling on the scene. Everything will be perfect when the light of the meter and the subject is same. Otherwise the light of your subject may fool your meter. One thing you must remember that in the incident mode, the tones of the subject and the scene are not relevant.

This field of wildlife photography is too vast to be grasped at a time. You need time and patience. All the professional photographers who have inspired you a lot have not got perfection in a single day. They have worked on the field since years, gathering experiences. Some experiences came in the forms of success while some came in the forms of failure. But their patience and love for this profession ultimately reach them at a position where they are standing now. And these two things should grow in you spontaneously, the wildlife photography workshops cannot built these things within you.

Wild Nature Photo Expeditions offer photography workshops in Australia led by experienced professionals. Interested people may call them at: +61 408 941965

Nicole Goodrem, an experienced professional photographer working for wildlife photography workshops is passionate about photography. I know how to deal with it. To know more about my works, visit my social media platform.