Tips & Techniques for Photographing Wildlife

Looks like, look like we're getting a little break in the weather, I'm gonna go ahead and get this thing off, the rain cover. It's kind of a pain. It is a pain. You like my high-tech cover? That's kind of embarrassing, Mike.

What is that? It's my Gore-Tex jacket. Well hey, if it works. I'd rather get wet. I don't want this to get wet.

No, no. All right, check out the big bull on the right. He's going and checking all of his cows. Going up to them and sniffing them. Still trying to check to see which one's ready, you know, to be bred, even though they're all close to that peak estrous, Right.

there's still one that's gonna come in first and he's gonna monitor that constantly. And he's also letting that other guy know those are his. Right. He's constantly, yeah, working that herd. And the name of the game is continue his genes, right?

That's right. That's what he wants to do. Well, he's got some nice genes. That is a beautiful, beautiful bull. He's not the biggest I've seen, but he is a nice one.

No, and he'd be even nicer if he didn't have that one broken point, you know? You know, that's nature. That shows what happens when they do get in these battles. Exactly. When you have a lot of action going on in front of you, just like this, you know, the main subject here is these bulls fighting each other and then the individual bulls turning and looking at you or looking back over their shoulder at their cows, that's the subject.

So when I'm trying to focus, it's easy to kind of be distracted. I like to really focus in on the eye of the animal. Even though in my view finder, I've got both bulls in my frame, I'm watching the corners of my frame just to make sure that I don't clip 'em or there's not something distracting in my background. But my real focus is right in on the eyeball of the animal. That's what you wanna make sure is in sharp focus.

If the eye of your animal is not in sharp focus, it's a terrible shot. One of the best pointers I can give in a situation like this is to not stop shooting. Too many people shoot a situation like we just had, where we had the two elk fighting, and they take all these pictures and they get these great pictures. And what they wanna do is stop and look at the pictures or talk to their little buddy and say, "Wow, look at this, check this out." Don't stop until everything is done. Wait till the animals are gone, then take time to talk to your buddy or look at the pictures.

Another really good tip for a situation like this is, I'm using the 600, which means I'm really isolating one animal at a time, unless they get really far away, and then sometimes I can get two or three animals. But in this situation where we've got two bulls coming together, if they're not far away, there's no way I'm gonna get both of them in the same frame. So what I always do, is I always carry my 70 to 200, which gives me the ability to let go of this, and then I can pull up and I get a much wider view of what I'm gonna be shooting. And now I can get both bulls. And if they come closer to me, then I can widen out and still get both bulls.

With this, I might be just shooting their eyeball and that's about it. Which is a cool shot, but I'm gonna tell a better story if I can get a wide angle when they're close. This has been awesome. I mean, how many times do you get a great fight and then all the great portraits, too? You know, like I said earlier, I think this happens every day, but it happens in places where you never get to see it.

Right. So, to see something like that, that's a once in a lifetime for so many. This is pretty cool. It looks like, though, he's run the other bull off and his harem, all the cows are starting to lay down. I think they're pretty content.

Looks like they're just gonna sit there and chew their cud for a while. But you know what? I've heard some bugling back over here, too. This park is full of elk, so I think if we head off this distraction, we might find some more. Let's got try it.

266,000 acres of absolute beauty. Pristine. This is an amazing place. You are so lucky to live so close to an area like this. It's a pretty cool place.

You know, I photograph all over the world, but I probably spend more time in Rocky Mountain National Park than any place other. How long have you been shooting? Almost 20 years. Wow, I bet you've seen a lot. You know, I have.

I've seen, you know, all the seasons are really cool. Where we're at right now in the fall, by far and away, my favorite. Absolutely. But I've seen a ton here. So what got you into photography?

You know, I started, I worked for the National Park Service and one of my jobs one summer was to take this professional photographer out. I was out there, got exposed to it, and went out and bought my first camera and just stuck with it. I notice you have your own little style. You know, everything from beautiful portraits that really tell a story, to environmental portraits. Yeah, you're exactly right.

Everybody has a style and that's part of the time. That's 20 years worth of, "You know what? I like that." And everybody has their own likes. So you just figure out, that works for me. I think that you can fall into a rut there, too, so you wanna be kind of changing it and you wanna add to it.

You wanna do a lot of the things that you can learn in this show, just to constantly improve. You never stop learning. Right. I've been doing it forever but I'll tell you what, every day is a learning experience. Absolutely, yeah.

And if you're not learning anything, you're not pushing yourself hard enough. It's location, location, location, what you've always heard, you know? But even in ugly places you can find some beautiful imagery if you take the time and get out and look. But places like this? It makes the job a little bit easier.

Rocky Mountain National Park is an awesome place to photograph elk because we got so many, but it also presents a problem. If you look at the trunks of all these aspen trees? They're all scarred up because in the winter when there's nothing to eat, they eat the bark off the aspens. They actually eat this? They eat that.

And you can't find an aspen stand in this park that's looking like this. If you look right here, you can see some fresh gnaw marks. That's pretty cool. And look how high they can reach with their mouth. Oh yeah.

It's incredible Well, and you'll see, if you look through the forest you'll see that line that's about as high as an elk can reach. Wow, another cool thing about aspen trees is if you take it and rub it, you'll see there's a white powder right here. And the Native Americans actually used to use this as a sunscreen on their body. Rub it all over their body to protect them during the summer months. Can't go wrong there.

Pretty cool. Let's keep it moving. Cool.