Recently I was at a local park photographing a rare bird with a group of like-minded photographers. You know the type – someone says “Hey! Wanna go photograph something cool?” and the rest of us ask when and where without even caring what it might be. Then we show up with all of our gear, ready for any possibility. This time it was a rare duck that has been seen hanging out with the mallards and gulls in the north end of Lake Washington. Mandy the Mandarin Duck had taken up residence in the Seattle area – they are not a breed of duck that hangs out in Washington.
We showed up to join the rest of the crowd of photographers, artists, birders, and feeders (these are the folks who show up with inappropriate food, or rarely actual duck food, and feed the ducks). Most of the crowd of photographers had very long lenses of the 400mm to 600mm variety – the perfect lens for capturing an amazing portrait of birds far off in the distance. Only problem was Mandy hung out close to shore; he was so used to people feeding him that he’d become habituated to all the hub-bub in the park. Now, I’m not saying these photographers came unprepared, I’m sure they were able to get the images they were hoping for – beautiful portraits of a beautiful bird.
I have my fair share of beautiful portraits of Mandy. Darn right I do. I came home from that outing with over 400 photos of him. But not all of them were portraits where your subject, in this case Mandy, takes up most of the frame as with the 1st photo in the series above. At least half of the photos were like this though – ok, ok, more than half – more like three quarters of the photos were portraits. Mandy swimming left. Mandy swimming right. Mandy straight on. Mandy napping. Mandy in shadowed water swimming left, then right again, then straight on, then napping. I have plenty of portraits of Mandy.
I showed up with my Sony a6000 mirrorless camera and the lens I have for that camera is the Tamron 18-300mm all-in-one zoom lens. I LOVE THIS LENS. It’s the perfect get up and go lens. There’s no switching lenses between different types of scenes. I could get portraits of Mandy and his friends (there was no shortage of ducks, gulls and other swimming birds at the park) at the longer end of the zoom and still create environmental images of the ducks at the wider end of the zoom. I’m not writing this to tell you that you need to buy this lens. I’m writing this for the exact opposite. Even if you don’t have one of these grand lenses toted by me and other photographers, you can still show up and create beautiful, and more importantly, interesting images of wildlife.
Back when I was taking photojournalism courses, we had an assignment for make portraits of business people. The assignment was very specific in the types of portraits – we were to create a headshot (head and shoulders), a mid-length portrait (upper body with an essential of their profession), then an environmental portrait where we see them interacting with their surroundings and the people there. As an example, we might be creating images of a mechanic. We’d get the headshot which tells us very little of who the person is and what they do – you might have some clues from their apparel. Then we’d step back a few steps and create another image – this time you’ll see more such as the manner of their attire, maybe they’re leaning against a car and you can see grease on their hands and maybe a rag hanging out of their pocket. You start to get the idea that this person is a mechanic. Finally, step back a few more feet and photograph them looking at a car engine, the walls behind them filled with tires, timing belts and cans of oil. You still see the mechanic, but you see them in their environment which tells so much more of the story than just the headshot. (Not knocking headshots, there is an art and skill to get good headshots.)
You can take this same assignment and apply it to your wildlife images. If you can, get the headshot or detail image of the animal. It takes skill and sometimes great equipment to get these (think 600mm lens). But if you don’t have that lens, go for the mid portrait where we see more of the animal with a bit of environment, such as the 1st image above. You can get these types of images with a 70-200mm zoom which most photographers have – or a good zoom on your camera phone. Especially if the animal is close. Then zoom out, get your subject in its environment. A majestic elk standing tall on a ridge with the mountains falling behind. A lovely duck swimming among his mallard friends and rocks near the shore of a lake. We then know so much more about the story of the animal. It’s a story that tells itself in environmental portraits.
Even if you don’t have the best lens for wildlife photography, you can still create beautiful environmental portraits that speak to you. The next time you hear that there’s a cool animal to photograph, grab whatever equipment you have and tell their story.