Something Other than Wildlife Photography

Mike Sutherland March 13, 2014 4

I have said this many times before. Photography is about expression. It is a tool that one can use to create and construct images that can, if seen by the correct audience, alter and change the way people think, act and progress. Photography is a tool we can use to stimulate creativeness through everyday life. Through the colours, the lines and the textures. It is a way of connection with emotions and drawing those feelings from your viewer. It is not simply a photograph. It is not just about looking through the lens finder and snapping away. It is about much more than this. This is a story, it is a feeling and it can certainly be a mode of change.

The more time one spends out in the bush, the more we begin to explore. Wildlife, animals, birds, insects, landscapes, stars, wide angle, telephoto, night photography and macro. These are just a few of the avenues to touch on. There is a world of photography that one can get lost within. It is just about experimenting, learning and teaching others.

A few nights ago, some staff, including our resident wildlife artist, Simon Max Bannister, set out to try and capture a massive lightning storm that was approaching us from the East. However, the intensity of the storm withered into nothingness and we failed in our attempts to capture this spectacle. This is when we got creative. Tripods set up, settings right and intervalometers operational, we decided to try something different.

The equipment I used was as follows:

Canon 7D

10-22mm 3.5-5.6 USM Canon lens

Tripod

Intervalometer (much like a self timer setting, however, one can begin and end a time-lapse with an unattended camera.)

We set our cameras to the Bulb setting, ‘B’ on your dial, f22, the smallest possible, and my ISO varied between 800 and 1000. The exposures changed each photograph but were between 6 and 20 seconds.

After a few hours of creativity, and many photographs later, this is the result of our evening. Just a few of the more effective and dramatic photographs we managed to capture.