
Photographing Coyotes
Doug GardnerDescription
Photographing coyotes can be challenging, as they can be easily spooked, but in this Yellowstone winter photography course, wildlife photographers Doug Gardner and Jared Lloyd come across a lone coyote making its way along a riverbank and, finally, settling down to intently watch some small prey in the snow. The coyote’s stillness makes for great winter wildlife photos.
One of the perks of shooting wildlife photography in the winter is that you never know what you’re going to come across, and when you do come across it, you’ll have a nice white backdrop to help you spot the animal. In this session, photographers Doug Gardner and Jared Lloyd take you on an expedition photographing coyotes, and they encounter one along a river in Yellowstone National Park. They follow the animal for 600 yards before it settles down on the riverbank, watching as it hunts down small prey in the snow. The coyote is aware of the photographers, but it has more important considerations: It’s time for a snack, and there’s something to eat.
Doug and Jared demonstrate techniques for shooting during winter weather conditions, including digging themselves into the snow and using their bodies as makeshift tripods. After taking some shots, Doug takes a gamble and moves for a better angle but misses the coyote pouncing on its prey. As the wind picks up though, the coyote visibly reacts to the blowing snow and cold. Now, instead of displaying a calm, almost tender expression, the animal narrows its eyes, bracing itself against the cold wind, which illustrates the harshness of winter in Yellowstone.
In this session, you’ll also get tips for photographing coyotes, including how to shoot neutral colors like the coyote’s fur against the bright snow and how to overexpose the shots to compensate for the camera’s attempt to turn the snow into neutral colors by adding gray.
MORE IN THIS COURSE:
This week, join me and professional wildlife photographer, Jared Lloyd, as we photograph one of the harshest winter environments on earth, Yellowstone National park. Now this park offers great wildlife photography opportunities year round. But it's winter that is truly the most spectacular time of year to photograph this wildlife. I'm your host, Doug Gardner and your wild photo adventure starts now. Wow!
What a spectacular place, Jared. I mean, this is unbelievable. I'm so glad that, that President Grant, years ago, had the wherewithal to protect places like this. I mean, this is really special. Yeah.
We're pretty lucky to have this place. You know, it's 2.2 million acres that have been set aside and it's basically a wildlife photographer's paradise. You know, I'd venture to say that this is the number one photographic destination in let's say the lower 48 States here, you know, it's, and it's our first national park, you know. 1871 is when Grant set it aside and it's just as incredible as the day that, you know, they put this into place. Well I'm certainly glad they did that.
And you know, the amount, the amount of wildlife that you can see, the variety that you can see is really spectacular. Well, the variety is, is what's truly spectacular. I mean, this is the only place in the lower 48 States that you have every single species of mammal that was here before Columbus set sail across the ocean. I mean, that's, that's pretty spectacular. If you think about the history of our people on this landscape.
And yet we have that still right here or at least since we reintroduced the wolf in 1996. Wow. Now what's the, what kind of population of wolves are they, doing good? Or? Yeah, they're doing pretty good.
We've got probably about 85 to 90 or something around that range right now. Very cool. Well, I'm hoping we get a chance to see some of those. Tell ya what, daylight's burning. We've got snow rolling in.
I want to get some shots of the animals in the snow, so let's get at it. All right, let's do it. This is a beautiful situation. This coyote came in from 600 yards down the river. And he walked the edge of the river, all the way up, jumped over the cat tails, and now he's just kinda relaxed right here.
It looks like he's getting ready to pounce on something. He's trying to listen. Doug, If you watch the ears on this coyote. You'll see that they're just constantly going. She'll close her eyes actually because she doesn't even need those things.
But if you just watch those ears they're constantly twitching, moving left, moving right, moving forward as she's listening for mice below her. This is a little too close for comfort. I'm a human . Sometimes you just gotta do what you got do. I have to say, this is a very of uncomfortable position, both physically and socially.
But I mean, it doesn't get much nicer this. I mean, look at this. Obviously, he's not worried about us here at all. Look, he's almost given us, like, a tender moment. And when in situations like this, you know, you gotta look at the times so always check on your exposure.
The line has been going in and out. Cause we got a snow storm coming in. This is one of those situations where it's real easy to underexpose the scene. You don't want to only look at that snow. It's supposed to be white, but if you shoot this at what your meter says it's supposed to be, it's going to be dark gray.
In fact, it's actually going to be at 18% gray specifically. So with my camera right now, I having to overexpose by a stop and a third to get this dial in just right. Look at the way he's got his paw up. Yeah, that's a shot. Goodbye, Jared.
I think I'm gonna try to ease down this bank a little bit and see if I can change the angle and view. While this is really nice, but you know, we don't know what, what kind of angle we got. It may may be even more spectacular. And so I'm gonna try to ease down. Slip down there.
I'll hold tight right here. Let me know if his behavior changes and tell me to stop. All right. Absolutely. Well that's a perfect example of, 'you got ta gamble'.
Because I moved, when he pounced, I lost that shot. All we can do is wait and see if he does it again. It's starting to snow harder now and the wind's starting to blow. So we've lost a little bit of light, but still, this is turned into from a good scene to a really great scene, because now we're showing snow and we can show them the environment in which the animal lives in. Doug, did I tell you I like Yellowstone in the winter?
Share tips, start a discussion or ask other students a question. If you have a question for the instructor, please click here.
Already a member? Sign in
No Responses to “Photographing Coyotes”