Be it a kitchen, lounge or bedroom, clutter will invariably make the place look messy. You want to have everything neat and tidy and in its place.
The same goes for wildlife photography; the busier a scene, the less likely it is that the photo will have a visual impact. The more going on in a picture, the more there is to distract you from the subject.
The Ingrid Dam young female up on a termite mound. With a clean sky and nothing directly behind the leopard, your eye isn’t led away from her. Although she isn’t doing much, the lack of clutter provides impact.
By contrast, this photo of the Inyathini male leaping across a river is somewhat marred by just how much is going on in the background. Whilst the moment is amazing, the leopard gets a bit lost against the foliage behind him.
Clean or solid backgrounds, fewer objects, pronounced bokeh… there are a number of ways to reduce clutter in a photo, and we’ve selected what we feel are the most appropriate 5 for wildlife photography:
Look for It
By simply training yourself to notice what’s going on around your subject, you will go a long way towards reducing distractions in your photos. As tempting as it is to have eyes only for the lion or elephant that you have in your frame, make sure you let your eyes roam around the rest of the frame to see if there’s anything there that shouldn’t be, or that will detract from the final image.
Once you get into the habit of doing this it will start happening almost instantaneously. The more you practice, the faster you will adjust and the quicker you will be able to take the photo. In wildlife photography, milliseconds saved can be crucial!
We were parked below the Nkoveni female who was up on a steep bank. There were quite a few grass clumps around her, but by quickly assessing her position before we stopped the vehicle, we were able to park in a spot that allowed us to photograph her unobstructed. A quick look around is usually all it takes.
Adjust Your Angle
Sometimes by shifting slightly in your seat or even just leaning, you can reframe a picture so that it cuts out unnecessary clutter.
Another technique we often stress is to get low. Obviously this can be tricky when it comes to wildlife photography, but there are steps you can take. Sit in the front row of the Land Rover. If the animals you are photographing are on a river bank, see if there’s a possibility of getting down into the riverbed. By shooting across or up instead of down, you generally establish a much greater distance between your subject and its beackground, which makes it far more likely you will get an effective bokeh (see points 3 and 5).
The Tutlwa female was up on a rock in the Sand River, which gave us the advantage of photographing from the same level as her in our vehicle. This meant that the trees in the background were out of focus and far less of a distraction.
Be Patient and Look Ahead
As frustrating as it can be when you can see the perfect angle or place for an animal to be for a great shot but the animal isn’t there, by simply waiting, you will be surprised how many times that perfect situation will seem to manifest itself.
By assessing where an animal is moving and reading the terrain, you will be far more able to make predictions as to where the animal might end up. It’s always worth planning for the money shot; if it comes off, brilliant, but if it doesn’t there’s always next time.
Following a leopard or cheetah through a clearing? Look ahead to see if there are any fallen trees or termite mounds in its path, and get into position early just in case the animal climbs up.
Spending so much time in the southern grasslands of Londolozi, cheetahs will take advantage of every rise or promontory to climb up on for a look around. By parking next to any raised object up ahead of where a cheetah is walking, you can be fairly certain it will climb up, resulting in a far better shot. More eye-level, more sky, less clutter.
Widen Your Aperture
The type of lens you are using here is key, but a wider aperture (ie. lower f-number) will narrow your depth of field, blurring the background more effectively and rendering any clutter there moot. Lenses with an aperture of f2.8 or wider (some get ridiculous and go to numbers like f1.2) will be more effective at blurring backgrounds, but two things to consider here are the distance from you to your subject and the distance from the subject to the background.
The closer the subject to the background the more clutter there will be, and the further you are from the subject the less of a blur you’ll get behind it from a wide aperture.
Closer to subject and subject further from background is the magic combination here.
The Tamboti female had climbed up on a fallen marula here that we had positioned ourselves close to. The greenery in the background is the riparian fringe of the Maxabene riverbed, which the leopard was a good distance away from. She was close to us but far from her background. I was shooting with a 70-200mm f2.8 lens here which kept the depth of field nice and shallow.
Use a Bigger Zoom
Big lenses equal big blur. A large telephoto lens will automatically generate a wonderful bokeh behind a subject, reducing clutter, as well as flattening the angle so that it looks like you are more at eye level with your subject.
The Tamboti female again. This photo was taken with a 600mm lens, and although the background was quite far from her anyway, the same completely blurred effect would have been less pronounced with a shorter focal length.
Sometimes things just won’t play into your hands and you won’t have a cheetah up on a mound, a leopard on a fallen tree or a 600mm lens at your disposal. Remember though, the photo should always be secondary to the sighting itself. If it isn’t lending itself to great photography, simply put the camera down and enjoy!
I always love these photographic tips.
Cluttered or not these are wonderful pictures! Victoria
Two of the most basic rules in one article. Get as low down as possible and open the aperture as wide as possible. Always worth while looking into the animals eyes as far as possible
James – thank-you _so_ much for this article – I always _love_ anything to do with bird and wildlife photography. And while, of course, I _know_ this I have found one needs to be reminded time and time again – me particularly because I make the same silly mistakes over and over again. I came around a cornet once without watching where I was going and almost fell over a Purple Heron – the morning light was _beautiful_ and he would have made a _stunning_ photograph but I chased him away instead. A couple of days later I was there again and _ did exactly the same thing_! I don’t know if that Heron will ever go back there! Thanks again!
Thank you for sharing these tips. It’s always a good reminder , although as you stated, when it’s too busy just put the camera down and take in the moment.
By the way, what is the answer to yesterday’s leopard identification? You promised the answer today….😊
Brilliant tips – but who was yesterday’s leopard?!
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Thanks Donald, I’ll try fix that.
James,
Trevor gave me the aperture tip which helped me secure perhaps my most memorable image from one of our visits.
This is really helpful, thank you James!!
James, Thanks for the reminders! We would love to try a 600mm lens sometime! Looks so awesome, but you must need some type of stabilization right?