Good Morning and welcome.

I had an opportunity this week to tend a speaker presentation at the St Albert Photography Club for Wildlife Photography. Greg Harvey from Burwell Photography School was indeed a very interesting and informative speaker where I had learned and even been a little inspired to get some different types of wildlife photos. Now I have not been able to do much in a new type that I wanted to try but it will be an ongoing project.

Greg Harvey does a lot in Safari Photography and he has captured many great photographs during safaris. One thing though that he touched on, whether it is safari or local, was the light. He made a great point that the light isn’t always in the most appealing light position. Normally you want to shoot with the direction the light is shining in. For example, if it is a sunset and the sun is shining from the West, you want to shoot East for the animal to capture the light in the eyes, or want the animal to be just before the sun to make a perfect silhouette. Now I had a chance that I am still kicking myself for to capture two crows on a telephone pole during an orange sky sunset where I didn’t capture the image. No camera in hand at the time but it would have made a great silhouette. Is this the only way to take a silhouette of anything though? If you were to ask me a week ago I would have said yes but now I am not to sure.

You can have the light directly behind your subject and the light can be harsh, meaning it is super bright and not muted. This will make a great outline silhouette photo which I never in my life thought about trying to do. Now I want to as the photographs Greg shared were different. It was a different style, a different type of photography, and it was very intriguing at least to me.

The above photo is the closest I could find in my library of images to describe what Greg was talking about. Except now I may go re-edit this photo, make the background dark and almost black but still have the outline of the fur of the dog. Greg was very insightful when it came to talking about wildlife and light. I see wildlife photography now in even a more different and inspiring light. Pun intended.

Lighting is everything when it comes to photography. It don’t matter if you are doing Landscape, Nature, Astro, Wildlife, Pet, or Portrait photography. You will always need some type of light for your subject to make that image appealing. With light comes shadows and shadows can also make the image appealing to the eye. In wildlife photography, you cannot instruct an animal on where to go and position. You have what you have to work with and you have to make it work for yourself. Sometimes the animal is only in the barest parts of light, mostly cast in shadow. Now you either make the shadow a full silhouette or you can make the shadow dramatic, but make sure you have light in the eye when being dramatic. Nothing is worse than a dramatic shadow but you failed to capture the light in the eyes. I did that once and at the time I thought it was a good photo but after Wednesday, I know it is not.

Image From Unsplash.
As seen above is a Great Grey Owl looking up. Parts of the feathers are in dark shadow and the eyee socket areat is dark but the eye itself is lit up and capturing the light. This is one prime example of making sure to capture the light in your subjects eye while still having that dramatic appeal. The image below is an example of having a low light image cast with many different shadows. Your subject is in the soft light but it is very low and is surrounded by the shadows. You can still get an image if you manage to capture a little light in the eyes. It doesn’t have to be as intense and bright like the owl, but as long as you have a little glimmer, you still have life in your subject.

As I wrap this up, I do not have an image really to showcase at this time other than a horse photo that I got last year. A black horse in the morning sun and at the time, I was shooting into the sun. I was still able to light up my horse and get the light without making a silhouette. So as I bid you farewell, I will leave you with these thoughts and the only one I have……..so far.

Tschüss!

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