Every photograph I’ve ever made has been a lucky shot. The light was just right; without it, there’d be no mood in the image. The weather cooperated, or it didn’t, but in the end, the resulting rain or fog made for a much more visceral photograph. The elephants lined up just so, and I was lucky. That I even get to be in the extraordinary places I make my photographs is so, so lucky. Of course, I’m referring to the final images that get edited out from the sketches, developed, and printed. Many among the sketches are very unlucky, and still far more fail for reasons for which I have only myself to blame.
Luck is underappreciated in conversations about creativity. As a younger man, admitting that luck played a role in what I had made felt like giving away the credit; I had worked hard to get where I was, I had learned to use my gear, and I had anticipated the shot, so if someone implied that it was a “lucky shot” I was both offended and defensive. It has taken me some years to change that response to gratitude and to think differently about luck.
It’s not a question of whether we credit our best work to either luck or skill but whether we’re open to taking advantage of it being both luck and skill. Creative work is a dance between you and the circumstances in which you do your work.
As a photographer, artist, or human being, being creative is about responding to circumstance or luck. You’ve probably heard some version of “the more I practice, the luckier I get.” As aphorisms go, it certainly has a ring of truth to it, but it still feels a little disingenuous—like it’s not so much acknowledging the role of luck but claiming the credit. “I wasn’t lucky,” we say, “I was prepared.” Perhaps, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if we let happenstance have a moment in the spotlight.
I’ve long been a proponent of being intentional in art-making and in life. In my early writing, I talked a lot about vision, which, depending on how you use the word, could probably be swapped out for “intent.” There’s great value in planning and forethought. Still, especially after making an unexpected shift into photographing wildlife, it’s been harder to kid myself about the serendipity on which I’ve been relying. It turns out being intentional in my work isn’t exclusive of sheer dumb luck.
So, luck being what it is, why talk about it at all if we have no control over it? Acknowledging luck probably keeps us humble, and there’s value in that where being perceptive is concerned. But there’s more value in being truly awake to luck—even looking and waiting for it.
The more you practice, the less likely it is that when luck does come, it will find you fiddling with your gear.
The more practiced you are, the more intuitive your craft will be for you, and the easier you’ll settle on a pleasing composition, dial in an exposure that’s not merely correct but truly expressive, and anticipate the strongest moments. Making a photograph might be a dance with luck, but it’s still up to you to follow that lead and be responsive to it. The more comfortable and practiced you are, the smoother that dance will be, and the better you’ll be able to improvise when your dance partner changes things up and your luck and circumstances go in a direction you didn’t expect, as things tend to do.
But there’s something else—the blind spot that occurs when you get too self-assured and stop being aware of luck and the magic you can find if you’re awake and looking for it. Almost every photograph I’ve ever made has a backstory that begins with my expectations and hopes—and ends somewhere else entirely, usually somewhere better and completely unexpected. I owe the credit to an openness to luck—and those crazy random happenstances. In most cases, I was looking or hoping for something else. Perhaps not something wildly different (though in some cases, that is certainly true), but very seldom does what I see in my mind’s eye match what I eventually see in my final picture, for which I am grateful. The best of my work has always been unexpected and is a creative response to that.
If this is true for you, it pays to be careful what you look for and to be mindful of your expectations. Expectations focus us; they narrow our gaze and give us the patience to wait for the moments we anticipate. But they can also make us unobservant of everything else that is going on, stopping us from seeing what would be very lucky indeed if only we were open to it.
The challenge of thinking or perceiving creatively as a photographer is being able to look for specifics without becoming oblivious to the unexpected.
I have found it helpful to breathe. To loosen up a little. To put the camera down and look around. To sit back and watch what’s going on. To be aware of my thoughts and be present. How many times have I invested time and attention in one scene, waiting for the moment, waiting for things to pop, only to realize the real opportunity was in an entirely different direction? That the stronger photograph was begging me to pivot and reimagine things? It happens so often that I’ve become suspicious of my first instincts; second-guessing my expectations has become my (rather counterintuitive) modus operandi. You’ve got to trust your gut, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask it to consider all of its options.
You can’t photograph what you’re not open to seeing in the first place. I never thought I’d say this, but our very specific vision as photographers can be our greatest liability as much as it can be our greatest asset, and sometimes more so if what we’re looking for (or expecting to see) blinds us to the unexpected.
Spirit Bear (Kermode Bear), Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia, Canada.
Years ago, in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia, we had been photographing a Kermode (or “spirit”) bear, an American black bear with a recessive gene that makes it white. We had waited for hours to photograph this bear, so we were thrilled when it briefly appeared. But then it was gone just as quickly as it had arrived, and with it went my hopes for the kind of photograph I’d worked so hard to make: a spirit bear fishing in the creek. Dejected, I sat on a rock and waited for the bear to return, feeling the muscles in my shoulders and neck tightening, fearful I had missed my chance and was wasting my time. The rain was only making things worse. And then I heard my guide, Tom, whispering my name. I was annoyed; he knew I was looking for a bear and didn’t want to divert my gaze. As I reluctantly turned to look at him, he made a gesture—a subtle upward glance with his eyes and a tilt of his head. And there, just a few feet above him, was our bear, sitting with its head on a log, watching me from high on the river bank. The resulting photograph pleases me immensely, never mind the magic of that unforgettable moment.
I was looking so damn hard I wasn’t seeing. Being awake to luck isn’t the only thing; you’ve got to be there. If the strongest photographs happen at the most unexpected intersections of light, space, and time, then the longer you spend awaiting (and remaining open to seeing) those intersections, the better the chance you’ll be there when it happens.
Yes, chance favours the prepared, but it also favours the present. Sit in one place long enough, revisit a subject often enough, and you will be luckier.
You must be there long enough for things to happen, for the light to change, for you yourself to become more aware of these changes, and to develop interesting ideas about what you see. The more time you give it, the luckier you will be, but that time will also give you more chances to do something unexpected and to think differently about how you turn that luck into a photograph. At the risk of abusing the metaphor, it’s more time on the dance floor.
I don’t pretend to have the creative process figured out; it remains mysterious, and I like the wonder that that instills in me. Yet, with each passing year, it’s a little less unpredictable, a little less scary. What I do know is that any creative effort, like making a meaningful photograph, happens in the liminal space between what we can and cannot control. There is such freedom in this.
The more willingly I relinquish the desire to control what I can’t and relax my grip on things, the more grateful I am for luck and the more likely I am to be both prepared and present when I turn and find it sitting there, head resting on a log, waiting for me.
Are You Good or Just Lucky was originally published as In Praise of Luck and is an excerpt from my latest book,Light, Space & Time. You can find it here on Amazon or from your favourite bookstore.
It takes a while to learn to use your camera like a photographer for whom the camera feels natural in the hands, to move your fingers across the buttons almost unthinkingly, with intent and purpose. It takes even longer to think like a photographer for whom thoughts about composition and the look and feel of the image come in a way that feels intuitive.
Photographers seem more excited to lean into the former than into the latter, which is unfortunate if you believe that your thoughts as a photographer must be thunk before you decide what to do with your hands.
Our photographs are a result of how we think about the world, the scenes in front of us, and how our perceptions of those scenes can be translated into a picture by our creative use of the camera.
If you and I were photographing together and you asked me, “What are you looking for?” your actual question would be, “What are you thinking?” It’s not how I use my eyes that you’d be inquiring about, but what I think about what those eyes are seeing. And when I’m alone, sitting in the presence of some wild thing and failing to make the beauty translate to the picture, I usually ask myself the same kind of question: “How should I be thinking about this?”
When the process is challenging, it’s not my eyes that aren’t working; it’s my mind. As a starting point, it sometimes helps to think about specific things and look for them. One of those things is contrast.
The contrasts or differences in the scene are often something we can build a photograph around. That could be a contrast of tones or of colours. It might be a contrast of shape, texture, or line. A contrast between the sizes of elements, perhaps, or the magical contrast of light.
It might be a contrast of ideas, what we usually call juxtaposition. Organic and inorganic in one frame. Hard and soft. Old and new. Ancient and modern. Predator and prey.
And it could also be contrasts that will only really come to life when I amplify them with the camera. A contrast of moving subjects against stationary backgrounds made clearer with a slow shutter speed. A contrast of focused elements against those I allow to blur with a wide aperture. Even the contrast between highlight and shadow might look one way to my eye, but magnified in effect by my exposure choices.
In the images above, which contrasts do you identify? Can you find the colour contrast? The contrast in size? The contrast of ancient and modern? What contrast do you see in the image of the vultures?
It is not necessarily true that the stronger the contrast, the stronger the photograph, but I think it’s certainly the case that more interesting contrasts captivate us. I don’t know why, but I know that we’re drawn to the differences. And I know this:
The fewer interesting contrasts I see in an image, the fewer mood and story hooks there are on which to hang my emotions and my imagination.
Not all contrast is helpful. We’ve all looked at a scene where the light is hot and contrasty, but not in a good way. Some colours contrast in an unappealing way. And there might be other contrasts in a scene that pull the eye, but not how you’d hoped. And maybe that’s what I’m getting at: contrast naturally pulls the eye. You can use that intentionally or pretend it’s not there, but it won’t pull the eye any less without you making some decisions. Maybe that’s where wider apertures and shallower depth of field help. Maybe a longer lens to exclude those unwanted contrasting elements. Perhaps this is when you convert the image with clashing colours into black and white.
Before you mash that shutter button or spin the dials, it’s worth asking which contrasts you see in the scene and if there’s a way—either with the camera or in post-processing—to draw my attention to them. It might just be that all you need to do is notice them and follow whichever instincts take over from there, but I know that learning to see is about learning to notice, and we notice things we think about.
I am amused by the contrast of the “have and have not” in the image on the left (click it to see it larger on my blog). Without that contrast, the image wouldn’t have the interest it does or the appeal to my humour. The image on the right is a contrast of size and age, but also of action: attentive vs. asleep. That’s where the story is.
So think about contrasts. Maybe look at some of your photographs today and seek out the differences. Contrast isn’t everything, but it’s one element I see in the best images. And when you’re sitting down doing post-production, asking where the interesting contrast is and how you might want to amplify it is a worthy question.
Without differences between elements, we have nothing to look at, no hook on which to hang our interest. The more interesting those differences, the more intentionally you work with them, the stronger your photographs have a chance of becoming. The more you think about this, the more you’ll see it.
Of all the prescriptive nonsense I hear about making photographs, the idea that “real photographers shoot on manual” has to be the most tiresome. As if burdening photographers with an even greater sense of obligation to the shoulds and the should-nots has ever led to greater creative freedom, less rigidity in our work, and more powerful photographs.
I’ve heard similar assertions about shooting in RAW (you must). And not cropping or using burst mode (you must not). And not using Photoshop to ___________. You can fill in the blank yourself because here, the so-called purists give us so many options from which to choose, but no matter what you put there, someone is going to put you on their naughty list without ever pausing to ask why you’re doing it differently.
Let’s set aside the notion that there is such a thing as a “real” photographer; you are a photographer if you make photographs. Full stop.
You might be a new photographer or an experienced photographer. You might be a lousy photographer or an inspired photographer. There are probably a million ways to categorize us, but real? As opposed to what? Imaginary? Fake? Is there a point to this kind of thinking? I need a drink.
Well, there is a point, and it’s that some people can only feel as though they are special by putting others down. They can only feel “in” by forcing others out. After all, if we’re all special, then no one is special (also nonsense, but that’s not what this is about. Focus, David!).
I’m not interested in what kind of photographer you are, though I’m interested in you as a photographer. I hope you’re fulfilled and love what you do, and that your photographs are getting stronger and feel more and more like your own.
I’m not overly concerned with how you make your photographs, so long as you’re happy doing it and it’s truly working for you. I shoot in something like full-manual mode with Auto-ISO and a liberal use of EV compensation, so I’m not sure whether or not I’m a real photographer and allowed to weigh in on whether you are or not. But I do know how to use my camera and make it do what I ask. If “real” photographers do anything, it is that.
Here’s my advice: shoot on Manual all the time. Or shoot in Aperture priority sometimes and Shutter priority sometimes. Hell, be reckless and push the dial to P now and then! Do what works for you.
What matters is that you have control of the camera while also being sensitive to the moment and still having the mental bandwidth to think about composition and what the light is doing. Do that.
If you need the camera to do some of the thinking for you while you tend to the decisions that make for stronger compositions, that’s a good choice. One day, that creative thinking will come a little easier, and you might long for a little more control over the camera’s decisions. Or you’ll figure out how you like to use the tools of your craft in your own way.
I like things simple: manual mode with auto-ISO and EV compensation to dial things in more precisely. This works for me for what I do right now.
And so long as I’m confessing my way out of the real photographer’s club:
I have no idea what my metering mode is and haven’t for over a decade—I just look at the histogram. I could look at my camera and find out, but that knowledge would enrich neither of us.
I don’t know what my focus mode is. It’s continuous and uses tracking—that’s what I know. It’s what I like, and I never change it (though I know how to do so if I had to). It works for what I photograph and how I like to use a camera.
I hate straps and have been told that not using one is reckless. A real photographer would at least use a wrist strap, right? I don’t like them, either. They slow me down. I’ll put one on if I have to—if I can find it.
I’ve been told the same about my indifference to UV filters and lens caps (though you can pry lens hoods from my cold, dead hands).
More often than not, when I bother to use one at all, my tripod is a little wonky.
I clean the front of my lens with my shirt, when (and if) I clean it.
Speaking of cleaning, my sensor often looks like someone spilled kitty litter into my camera while the lens was off, which is not the only reason I tend to shoot wide open, but it’s a reason. I get them cleaned once a year, and that’s enough for me.
My camera bag can be a mess; the dividers are all over the place, and they change all the time, if I even bother using them. Half the time, I just use a Buff, lens cloth, toque, or a pair of gloves to keep bodies and lenses from banging into each other. If my gear gets banged up, it’s because I’m using it for the purpose for which it is made.
I’d hate to have a real photographer weigh in on any of this. But if you’re going to judge me at all (I’d really rather you didn’t; don’t you have photographs you could be making?), then judge me on my photographs.
None of the sins I’ve mentioned gets in the way of creating the photographs I want to make. But fussing would. So would an unexpected lens cap. Or succumbing to the pressure to practice my craft in a way that just isn’t me.
So much of the advice I see aimed at photographers could be gathered up and bound into one volume called Adventures in Missing the Point. There are no real photographers (to the exclusion of others) any more than there is a single right way to do things that qualifies you to be one.
What matters is that you learn to make the kind of photographs you want to make, and to do so with greater creative flow and control. It matters that you be open to new ideas and techniques, but as creative options, not as obligations.
I’m not saying throw your lens caps away or don’t learn to shoot on manual if you think it might give you more control. And, yes, cleaning your lens with your shirt is generally considered less than ideal practice (don’t look at me like that; you do it, too). But I am saying it probably won’t get in the way of you doing the work your soul loves (which I am very much tempted to add is probably the only thing real photographers are universally concerned with).
Think in terms of possibilities, not prescriptions. We’re all trying to create something different, and there can’t possibly be only one path to do so.
For the Love of the Photograph (and those who make them), David
The biggest challenges for most photographers are not technical but creative.They are not so much what goes on in the camera but what goes on in the mind of the person wielding it. Light, Space & Time is a book about thinking and feeling your way through making photographs that are not only good, but truly your own. It would make an amazing gift for the photographer in your life, especially if that’s you. Find out more on Amazon.
I recently read of a 19-year-old football player, a goalkeeper for Real Madrid,who was in a serious car accident and left unable to walk for two years. The story caught my attention because it was 14 years ago this month that I had my own accident, which shattered both my feet, cracked my pelvis, and left me unable to walk with a long road back to normal.
Life, they say, is what happens when you’re busy making other plans. “Sh!t Happens,” says the bumper sticker a bit more succinctly. Indeed.
Like the 19-year-old footballer’s accident, my fall in Italy didn’t just shatter my feet, but my plans and dreams. At the time, it felt like a heartbreaking detour.
But it wasn’t a detour at all. A detour takes you from your planned path, diverts you for a while, and then plunks you down further up the road. You use more fuel and might feel lost for a moment or two, but then you’re back on track. Chances are, it won’t make that much of a difference.
What happened to me in Italy didn’t just give me an alternate route to wherever I thought I was heading; it took me in an entirely new direction. It didn’t feel that way at the time—it didn’t even feel like a detour, but an impassable roadblock.
I bet it felt like that to the young footballer, too. His name is Julio Iglesias. The name is probably familiar to you, though you might not know him as an athlete. The accident happened a long time ago; Iglesias is now 81 years old. He is one of the world’s most beloved and commercially successful Spanish singers, not to mention one of the best-selling musicians of all time. During his two-year recovery, one of his nurses gave him a guitar, and he discovered his gift for music. His accident wasn’t a detour. And it wasn’t a roadblock. It was a redirection.
If you’ve ever used GPS navigation in your car, you know the chastising tone of voice your navigation uses when you take a wrong turn. “Recalculating,” it repeats until it finds a way to re-route you. I can’t be the only one who hears it saying “dumbass”in the pauses in between.
If you listen carefully, that’s the constant refrain of the creative life: “Recalculating…Recalculating…”
The challenge is not “getting back on track.” It’s not avoiding the mistakes and missteps that take us off at the wrong exit. The challenge is to hear in that one-word mantra (recalculating…) not judgment but possibility. It’s to hear an invitation in the pauses in between. Heard with an open mind, it’s a call to adventure.
In my home airport, Vancouver International, there is a quote on the wall that reminds travellers that “it’s not the destination that counts, but the journey,” which always makes me laugh because if there’s one time in life the destination really does matter, it’s air travel. The destination is the whole point!
In the creative life, there is no destination. It’s not that it’s less important; it simply doesn’t exist. There is no place where one arrives, collects their luggage, and tosses their boarding passes in the bin on the way out of the airport, the journey now complete.
The creative life is only journey. It is always recalculating.
This isn’t positive thinking; it’s creative thinking, and it’s important if we’re going to approach our work with less rigidity and find greater joy in it. It’s absolutely necessary if we’re going to make work that isn’t safe.
And, pragmatically, it’s helpful when you’re trying to create your work in the real world when light and circumstances don’t always go to plan. When you’re in the field and one of your lenses fails, forcing you to completely reconsider your entire approach. When you’re working on a body of work that you thought was going in one direction but takes a right turn at Albuquerque (Bugs Bunny fans will get the reference). Or when you’re photographing a scene and it’s just not working, or that moment you’ve waited so long for materializes differently than you planned.
Do you bang your head against these circumstances, maybe use them as excuses, or (to return to my metaphor) do you take the off-ramp and see where it leads?
Sometimes, all I’ve had to do is turn around (recalculating, recalculating) and point my camera at something else.
In hindsight, the best of my work has often resulted from the unexpected or the accidental. What initially appeared to be a roadblock was, in fact, an invitation to recalculate.
Better minds than mine have observed that “what’s in the way is the way.” Whether it’s a roadblock or an off-ramp to something better is up to you.
I’ve never found that my work (or my life) goes very well when I’m unbending and inflexible, when I adopt a stance of rigidity and stand my ground instead of embracing a spirit of openness and exploration. Trying stubbornly to bash my creative square peg into the round hole of circumstance has never been anything but exhausting, and I don’t do my best work when my tank is empty. None of us do.
Stay open. The creative life is one of endless recalculations, and not only can nothing divert you if there’s no ultimate destination, but it’s the zig-zags that make the most interesting journeys.
The biggest challenges for most photographers are not technical but creative.They are not so much what goes on in the camera but what goes on in the mind of the person wielding it. Light, Space & Time is a book about thinking and feeling your way through making photographs that are not only good, but truly your own. It would make an amazing gift for the photographer in your life, especially if that’s you. Find out more on Amazon.
Photography can be many things. For some, it’s about capturing scenes. For me, it’s about conveying emotions and suggesting narratives that resonate deeply, first with me and then with the viewers who might experience the image. I’m not so much after eyes as I am hearts and minds. Mood does that.
The mood of a photograph is its emotional tone—a subtle yet powerful element that can transform a simple image into a compelling one that is more than visual but also visceral.
Mood in photography refers to the overall feeling or atmosphere an image evokes in the viewer, ranging from joy and serenity to tension and melancholy. As broad as the gamut of human emotions is, so too is the possibility of touching them with a photograph. Mood is the intangible quality of a photograph, often created by a combination of many elements, a short list of which would include light and composition, the subject matter itself, and colour. But that is a very abbreviated list of how we can establish an emotional connection—to make photographs that are more expressive on the level that makes us sigh, laugh, cry, or feel wonder when we see them.
For those who aim to tell stories with their images (and not all of us do), an image that successfully conveys a mood can evoke empathy, curiosity, or nostalgia, drawing the viewer into the story behind the photograph. Making them care. Investing them.
Mood can also play a significant role in guiding the viewer’s perception and interpretation of an image. It acts as a lens through which a visual story is understood. It changes a photograph of something into a photograph about something more specific. For instance, a photograph of a deserted house might evoke feelings of loneliness or melancholy, suggesting themes of abandonment or loss. But the same scene captured with warm lighting and vibrant colours might create a nostalgic or serene mood, changing the narrative entirely. Through mood, photographers can steer the viewer’s emotional response and shape the story being told. Both hypothetical images I just mentioned are of the same thing, but they are about very different things. That’s the power of mood.
Beyond storytelling and emotional engagement, understanding and pursuing mood can just make prettier photographs. Stronger images aesthetically. Images that stand out more because they have a distinct visual identity. Whether it’s the ethereal quality of a foggy landscape or the raw energy of a stormy sea, mood adds depth and character to photographs, making them more memorable and impactful.
Mood is often what first captures the viewer’s attention—the hook that draws viewers in to explore the image further.
Complicated images with a lot going on can take a while to figure out. The impact is spread out and sometimes doesn’t hit as powerfully. Mood is simple; it’s a feeling that requires no figuring out. Mood is seldom a puzzle.
In portrait photography, mood can be used to reveal a subject’s unique personality or telegraph how they feel. It can connect us to a subject we might not otherwise care about. The landscape photographer relies on mood to transform ordinary scenes into extraordinary vistas, capturing the essence of a place—the feeling of it. Documentary photographers use mood to make us feel empathy about social issues. Any photographer wanting their audience to feel something would be foolish to assume that subject matter alone will provoke empathy when there are much more powerful tools available, among which might be choice of moment, point of view, or the brightness of an image.
Mood brings emotional depth; it is the life of an image.
For me, mood is often the why. It’s what draws me to make the photograph in the first place. And so it is perhaps a source of consternation or confusion when I look at the work of photographers new to this craft, and even back on years of my early work and see no mood. What power they might have had if only these photographers (and I) understood the possibilities. If only I had asked better questions than, “Which lens should I use?” or “What would a proper exposure be for this?”
When you first start out, it’s probably helpful that your questions relate to focus, exposure, or lens choice. But I’m increasingly convinced those questions should never be separated from this better one: How do you want the image to feel? Because even where focus and exposure (and lens choice) are concerned, your choices about how can never be separated from your choices about why. If I can see it, I can feel it. So if you make an image darker, I will feel that darkness and its accompanying mood. If your focus is so shallow that the out-of-focus highlights become globes of light and colour and the rest of the scene softens, I will feel that too. Or if your focus is so shallow I can’t see enough detail to make sense of the story, I won’t feel the power of that story. Not a single decision we make—either in camera or with development—can’t be used to make an image that is as visceral as it is visual.
Two questions that will change the way you make photographs: How do you want the image to feel? What would that look like?
If you’re open to a quick exercise, answer these two questions for me:
What do you love that conveys mood in an image?
What makes your heart skip a beat?
Many of the elements and choices that bring mood to an image are felt somewhat universally, but the ones we most like working with, the ones we most want to see in our images, are a matter of preference. I’d love to hear what those mood hooks are for you. My top three would have to be backlight, point of view, and the mystery that shadows create in an image. What are yours? You can drop those into the comments below.
I do a little moonlighting for a small computer and imaging company that rhymes with Snapple. They are under the mistaken impression that my nearly 40 years behind the camera means I know what I’m talking about. Still, I like the challenge. One of my first tasks as their Creative Storytelling Specialist (yeah, I don’t know what that means, either) was to help the engineers understand mood as it relates to picture-making.
So to get a head start, I did some poking around the internet in hopes that people with greater minds than I had already articulated the idea of mood. Mostly what I found was the advice to “put more mood in your photographs,” as if I were being told to add more salt to every recipe. Not helpful.
The problem with mood is it’s not really one thing. Add mood? What kind of mood? If mood is about emotional connection then surely we can be more specific about which emotions. But before we disregard the advice entirely, it’s worth acknowledging that it comes from a good place, a recognition of the power of mood.
The desire for more mood in our photographs—not unlike the desire for more salt—is a desire for more flavour. Only in this case, the flavour is emotion. It’s a desire to move beyond the pursuit of perfection in our images toward something a little more poetic. Poetry is about feelings; unless you’re working as a forensic photographer, feelings are probably something you hope to stir with your photographs. And that requires interpretation. It requires making choices that sway an emotion one way or the other. It requires taking some risks because almost every choice that leads to more emotion in our images is a choice that deviates from the playbook we were all given with our first cameras. It’s a move away from average and towards more flavour. Pass the salt, please.
So back to my early efforts to articulate mood as a powerful tool (more like a toolbox, really) in photographic expression. Once I got over the confusion about why so little insightful information was out there, here are the first three realizations I had.
You Can Learn Mood
Mood isn’t the result of secret techniques, or even advanced techniques. It’s more a result of refined sensibilities. Maybe it’s also a matter of priority. It’s in looking for it, chasing it. It’s in recognizing it when you see it and knowing which choices can amplify those emotions through the image. And those are all present as visual cues that we can see and learn from. You can learn this.
Set the camera aside for a moment and think about a photograph that you love—one that stirs something in you. Maybe one of the iconic images that made so many of us feel the power of the photograph and want to pick up the camera ourselves so we could find that power and beauty. What makes you feel the way you do about that photograph? Is it only the subject matter?
I love bears, but not every picture of a bear makes me feel anything. Some make me feel bored. They lack mood. But the ones I love? It’s more than a bear. Bear in great light, perhaps. What kind of light is it, and what did the photographer do with it? Maybe it’s a bear in a great moment. Maybe it’s the camera placement or a story implied by other elements in the frame. Maybe—probably—it’s all that. Whatever it is, you feel it because of something you see. And if it’s something you can see, it’s something you can learn.
In short, don’t spend more time studying your technical tools than you spend figuring out your mood tools.
Light Is Everything
The first thing we look to when we chase mood is light. And so it should be. Light is so often the first thing that hooks us. We feel something about light that resonates with us. We feel differently about backlight than about front-lit scenes. We feel differently about softer light than light that’s more direct and makes harsh shadows. We respond to the shadows and reflections created by light. Where light is concerned, what we seem not to respond to is, well, boring light. Average light. That’s not to say you can’t make expressive photographs in boring light, but it won’t be light to which we respond but something else. A different hook. So if light is so powerful, why do photographers insist on painting with anything but light that has the power of an emotional hook? If you want mood, look to the light.
It’s Not All About Light
At the same time, it’s not all about light. There’s a reason photographers use different focal lengths, and it’s not just to “get more reach” or get more in the frame. It’s because different lenses feel differently. They interpret a scene differently. So do the places in which we put the camera. And the weather. And our choice of moment. Of course light isn’t truly everything. All our choices, all the elements, are everything.
And that’s the problem with “put more mood into your photographs.” It’s every decision we make—or it can be. But here’s the other problem with mood: there are no rules. There are hooks, elements and choices that we do or don’t respond to, but there’s no playbook. Not really. And so it comes down to having a sensitivity to those hooks, taking risks, and knowing what stirs the OMGILT (Oh my God, I love that!). Many things stir emotion in our images—and nearly infinite combinations of them—but you won’t love to use them all. You won’t love the same colours I do. You won’t be as excited by the same focal lengths or perspectives nor drawn to the same subjects or stories.
Your Turn. There’s a Prize.
Are you up for an exercise? How about if I put a prize on the line? In the comments on my blog, tell me about that photograph I asked you to imagine a few paragraphs ago. Describe it. Tell me why you feel the way you do about it. It’s probably not just one thing, but many. What gives that photograph its mood, or what makes you feel the way you do about it? Don’t hold back. I’ll draw one person’s name from the comments below for a free enrollment in my next course, which may or may not be available very soon and is all about mood and making photographs that elicit a more powerful emotional response. Who’s in?
Update: The lucky winner is Jon Lloyd. Jon, I’ll send you an email about your free enrollment in my Shoot What it Feels Like course. Thanks for playing!
The notes below are specific to Kenya but having done safaris in Zimbabwe and South Africa as well, most of these suggestions apply just as well to other places.
I’ve been asked over the years, both by my safari clients and others, what and how to pack for a trip like this, so it felt like this might be a good time to explore that for those who are curious. If you and I were sitting down over a glass of wine and you told me you were planning a safari and asked me for my advice on packing, here’s what would be most likely to tumble out of my mouth, in no particular order. This is a long one, so you might want to get that glass of wine (or cup of coffee) now.
Arrive Early
Most flights into Nairobi arrive late at night, usually from 9 pm to midnight. You clear customs, grab your bags, and head out of the airport to take your first breath of air—a mix of dust and diesel and the heady promise of adventure. If you’re on one of my trips, a driver will pick you up and take you to your hotel for whatever sleep you can get before an early breakfast and a short flight to the Maasai Mara. That’s if it all goes well: if there are no delays, no missed connections, and no lost luggage.
My recommendation is to arrive at least one night earlier; I prefer to spend two or three nights at The Emakoko. Located in Nairobi National Park, staying at The Emakoko means I’m in a Land Cruiser and out of the city within 20 minutes of walking out of the airport (about 40 minutes to the actual camp). And when the sun comes up the next morning, I’m photographing rhinos and lions in the morning light, shaking off the dust and jet lag while waiting for my clients to arrive. (The Emakoko is lovely but not inexpensive. If I don’t have time or budget, I stay at the Emara Ole Sereni)
And if there’s a problem with international flight delays (or wayward luggage), I’ve got time to sort that out before I need to be on a small plane heading to the Mara or whichever area I’m exploring. Planning to arrive two nights before you’re meant to be on a charter flight to the Mara (or Amboseli, or Meru, or wherever) provides a buffer and some peace of mind. And if you want to get out to see things like the Giraffe Centre, the Sheldrick Elephant Trust, or just spend the day exploring and photographing in Nairobi National Park, this gives you time to do that.
Pack Light
This is easily the hardest part of most safari travel. Sure, your international flight to Nairobi will let you carry 50 lbs (or more) of checked luggage and maybe as much as 50 lbs in your carry-on luggage as well. So bring it all, right? But the problem arises when you need to get on a small Cessna and they tell you you’re limited to something insane like 25 lbs—total! It’s an impossible ask of photographers with gear.
Even if I didn’t bring a stitch of clothing (look away!), my camera gear alone weighs more than this. The workaround is to book an additional seat or child’s seat with your airline (usually SafariLink), or to travel with a small group specifically catering to photographers, like one of my trips, in which case we just charter the whole plane. Weight limits of some sort still apply, but they’re much less restrictive. Mercifully, my clients can now pack a few pieces of clothing as well.
Once you arrive at your safari camp, you need very little. A couple changes of clothes is really all you need as there’s basic laundry at most camps. Bring a sweater or light jacket as the mornings can be cool. Bring a rain shell if you’re there during the rainy season. You’re not there to make a fashion statement, so just bring the basics. But do be aware of what your limits are before you get there and plan for those limits (everything is negotiable) or you’ll find yourself frustrated and stressed out when all you want to do is board your plane. If you’re going with a group or you’ve got a safari organizer, be sure to ask about this. Of course, if you’re driving to the Mara (or whichever area you’re visiting) it becomes a non-issue, but I wouldn’t trade more time on safari for unlimited gear and the long drive ever again. A 45-minute flight compared to an eight-hour drive on Kenyan roads? That’s an easy choice for me.
Soft Luggage
The other thing to keep in mind is your luggage itself; the smaller planes really don’t like rigid luggage, so leave the hard shell suitcase at home. Pilots like to be able to get as much luggage as possible into the small holds, and large rigid suitcases make this more difficult than it needs to be. They’re also heavy, so if you want to save weight and not get your pilot’s nose out of joint, stick to something soft. I like the Base Camp series of duffel bags from The North Face. I’ve got five of these bags in different sizes, and they’ve never failed.
(Updated:as of 2025 I’m using a Patagonia 70L Black Hole Wheeled Duffel. In June 2023 I had my right leg amputated below the knee and find a wheeled duffel easier for hauling my gear)
The North Face Base Camp Duffel has been around the world with me, in various sizes and colours for many years. Reasonable weather-proof and extremely durable, these (or something like them) are my recommendation.
In addition to what I wear as I travel, here’s what’s in my duffel for most of my trips:
2 long-sleeve buttoned shirts (lightweight and synthetic)
1 warmer long-sleeve shirt (I like merino wool)
2 pairs underwear
2 pair of socks
2 pairs lightweight long pants
Lightweight flip-flops/sandals
Shorts that double as swim trunks
1 baseball or sun hat
1 sweater, merino wool (I like the Icebreaker brand)
1 lightweight puffy jacket (Patagonia) for cooler mornings
Light gloves and toque
Lightweight rain coat (Patagonia)
2–3 Buffs, which are handy fabric tubes that can be worn around your neck to protect from sun, pulled over your nose and ears to keep pesky flies out, and wrapped around lenses and camera bodies to protect them in transit. I love my Buffs!
What About Footwear?
My favourite slide-on/slide-off boots are Blundstones, and they’ve been around the world (and on safari) with me many times. You don’t usually need much more than light sneakers or ankle boots for safari because you’re not often out of the vehicles unless you’re on a walking safari. Don’t weigh yourself down with heavy leather hikers. I have clients who happily wear sandals all day, though I prefer to keep my feet covered and out of reach of bugs (especially ticks which freak me out!)
About Carry-On Bags
Now, this all assumes you’ve managed to get to Kenya in the first place without running the gauntlet of various luggage limitations imposed by international carriers. Since they all differ, the best thing you can do is check your limits and buy a decent luggage scale and keep it with you as you pack.
My last British Airways flight to Kenya (YVR – LHR – NBO) allowed me two pieces in the cabin, each up to 23 kg (or 51 lbs). That’s generous; many airlines don’t give you this much. To my surprise, Air Canada is currently limiting the size and number (2) of carry-on bags but is saying that no specific weight limits apply. I’m not sure when that change happened, but it’s welcome! Know your limits and work within them.
My carry-on bags are the Gura Gear Kiboko 30L and the Gura Gear Chobe 16″. Both are lightweight, can carry a ton of stuff, and still fit in almost every overhead bin I’ve ever tried and under some of the tightest seats, and they look like they carry less than they do. I own seven different Gura Gear bags, they’ve been to 7 continents with me, and they’re my hands-down favourites for my long-lens trips. Read more about them in this post here.
One of my Gura Gear Kiboko bags (left and centre) and my Gura Gear Chobe (right). Made from a durable sail cloth these are lighter than any other bag of the same size that I’ve used.
8 batteries for the cameras (lithium-ion batteries cannot go in checked luggage)
1 small Petzl USB-rechargeable (lithium-ion) headlamp (don’t overlook this; you’ll be starting and ending the day in the dark, and having a hands-free light to find things while you’re bumping around in the truck at the edges of day can really help)
1 card wallet with 10 x 256 GB SD cards (bring more than you think you need)
*A note about packing lenses: don’t travel with them attached to your camera bodies, especially longer lenses, which act like levers. It’s just too easy for the weak point—where the lens and body connect—to fail if a bag gets dropped. Keep them separate in transit and put them together when you get to your camp.
2 x Samsung 4TB SSD hard drives (SSD drives have no moving parts and are much faster and more durable than drives with spinning platters (and they’re so small I can put one in my passport wallet)
1 card reader and one hub to connect it all
Power cables and plug adapter (Kenya uses type G, the same as the U.K.)
Sony battery chargers x 2
1 novel
1 journal and pens
Apple AirPods Max
Passports, copies of my visa, and relevant vaccine passports (copies of all these are also in the cloud on Dropbox, just in case)
iPhone
Sunglasses
Medications and a couple of meal bars
Cash for tips and emergencies (USD in newer, smaller bills—most camps take credit cards, but it’s good to have a few hundred bucks in cash to tip your drivers)
On other trips when weight limits are tighter (for example, on Lufthansa, I’m allowed two carry-on bags, but each max out at 8 kg/roughly 18 lbs, and that’s for the business class cabin!), I move some of the heavier stuff from the big bag into the smaller one because the big bag is most likely to draw attention and get weighed. Fortunately, the airlines don’t like putting expensive gear, lithium-ion batteries, or life-saving medication in the hold, and that pretty much covers everything in my bags!
What I like about this set-up is that when I get to camp, my computer and personal stuff is all in one bag that stays in my tent, and once my gear is all together, I have only one backpack and a long lens and camera to take to the Land Cruiser for game drives. It’s easy to work out of and still keep my stuff (as well as a raincoat, a sweater, and a bottle of water) all together.
So, Which Lenses?
I’ve listed above which lenses I bring. Out on the savannah, you’ll have plenty of times when the 24-105mm will be perfect (the lions and beasties almost within touching distance), and the wider focal lengths for landscapes and shooting the adventure itself are great. Other times you’ll want the reach of a longer lens.
Do you need a 600mm lens? No. In fact, longer lenses are bigger and weigh more, and you might be better off with a 300/2.8 and a 1.4x or 2x tele, depending on the quality of images you get with your particular glass. A 1.4x on my Sony 600/4.0 is amazing and gives me the extra reach. Another way to get some extra reach might be to bring one body that’s not full-frame in order to take advantage of the crop factor.
If I have lenses that cover from about 24mm to 600mm I’m happy. That could be a 24-105, 100-400, and a 600mm or a 300 with a 2x. It could also be a 16-35, 70-200, and 600 or 300 with a 2x. Or it could be 24-105 and 200-600. Whatever the combination, 24 to 600 is perfect coverage for a safari.
The other consideration is not only reach but how much light it lets in. Some of the best opportunities I’ve had in the softer light on either side of the day have benefited from a lens that lets more light in, but if your camera does well at low-light/high-ISO, then just nudge that ISO up. It’s always a compromise (with budget as well), and for many people, the best compromise might be something like a slightly slower zoom lens rather than a long fast telephoto. And because you are usually confined to vehicles, generally choosing zoom lenses over fixed primes will give you some flexibility with your compositions. I personally don’t think there’s any reason to bring more than three lenses on safari.
Instead of the big heavy 600mm and the 100-400mm, you could bring a lens like Sony’s excellent 200-600/5.6-6.3. As long as I could get to about 600mm of reach with focal lengths in between from about 24mm, I’d be happy on safari.
(Updated:Sony now makes a 300/2.8 lens that is gorgeous and, coupled with a 2x teleconverter, gives me the option of a 600/5.6 at a fraction of the weight. My 600/4.0 mostly stays at home now.)
Remember, some of this glass is prohibitively expensive, especially if you’re not doing this often, and this is where I suggest you consider renting. Don’t buy a $10,000 lens when you could rent one and get access to a much longer, faster lens for much, much less.
Which Camera?
Well, for most of us, the answer is “whichever cameras you own.” But something with decent high-ISO performance, a fast burst mode, and quick autofocus will serve you well. It’s probably more important that you have two of them so you have a backup if one fails, and so you don’t have to change lenses too often in what is often a very dusty environment. Most of the time, I’ve got one body with my 600mm and mounted to a monopod, and the other with my 100-400mm sitting in my open bag at my feet.
Batteries?
Bring enough batteries for a long full day of shooting a lot of frames. Most lodges have easy access to charging stations, but you’ll want to be sure you can shoot all day. Not every camp has charging stations in the tents, so it’s helpful to label your batteries and chargers just so you know what belongs to who if there are others there with similar gear.
SD Cards?
Bring them all. My hard drives max out at 4TB, so I have 4TB of cards (mostly 256GB, but some older 128GB cards, just in case). They weigh nothing, so if you’ve got’em, bring’em. I make sure I have enough cards and hard drives that I can arrive home with everything backed up on two drives and not have to reformat or re-use my cards until the images are safe at home.
Anything Else?
1 x 4-outlet power strip with USB (this means I only need one plug adapter and can charge multiple things at once—handy if there are other photographers wanting to use a limited number of outlets)
A rocket blower and small sensor cleaning kit
6-8 microfiber lens cloths in a Ziploc bag
Small multi-tool (Gerber)
2 x garbage bags in case it rains or my big gear needs quick protection from dust
Tiny roll of duct tape and tiny tube of Superglue
Tiny pocket-sized first aid kit
Spare glasses and sunglasses (if I can’t see, the trip is over!)
Binoculars (although the camps often provide them, I like using my own—and if I’m cutting bag weight, these are the first to get left at home)
Longer lenses mean the need for some kind of support. Sure, you could just hold that 600mm (it weighs 3 kg without the camera), but not for very long! Wildlife requires a lot of patience and waiting, and you want to be ready when the action happens, not sitting there with a camera on your lap.
For years I brought a bean bag filled with lightweight buckwheat husks, and filling it at home saves you from having to find beans or some other filler when you get to camp. I still suggest this for those who don’t want a monopod or who use lighter lenses, but many vehicles (especially the open-sided ones that are best for photography) don’t have a great place to put a bean bag, or if they do, they’re so low you couldn’t see through the viewfinder if you wanted to (tilting LCD screens to the rescue).
What About Tripods?
I haven’t packed a tripod for safari in 12 years, but a few years ago I started using a monopod, and with the right gimbal head for lenses with a tripod collar, it’s amazing.
I keep my monopod collapsed and rest it on the seat or my thigh most of the time. But I can also expand it and rest it on the floor, or expand it more completely and rest it on the ground outside the vehicle to get my camera much lower. And once it’s up, I can sit for hours, holding it loosely, with my camera aimed where I want it. I can’t believe I waited this long to shoot this way. And if you don’t want it, take it off, and it’s out of the way.
So, ahem, while we’re talking about support, Cynthia and other female clients have told me often that a good sports bra is a welcome addition to my suggested packing lists. There is a lot of bouncing around in the safari vehicles and for those for whom that might matter (you know who you are), a little extra support might go a long way.
My first Kenyan safari was over 15 years ago, and it changed my life. We now spend every January (pandemic notwithstanding) exploring this wonderful country. For wildlife lovers, it’s an extraordinary experience. But it’s not only the fantastic animals: it’s the light, the landscapes from which the human race sprung, and the people. I feel so…home here. If you’re at all curious about exploring or photographing Kenya, I’d love to answer any questions you may have in the comments below this post.
I’ve got an incredible safari planner, and if it might help you plan your own trip, let me know in the comments, and I’ll introduce you by email. He’s my secret weapon.
Got a question about gear? Let’s talk about that, too. It’s taken me a long time to dial this in, and I’d like to make it easier for you if I can. There’s so much I didn’t cover in this article, but if you’ve got questions, let’s explore them!
My Land Rover pulled up just in time to watch the lions finish their meal. What remained had once been…what? A zebra? It’s sometimes hard to tell. Whatever it was, it’s mostly gone now.
“We’re too late,” I hear someone say. “Nothing to see here.” Maybe it was the voice in my head.
But hang on a moment. In the world of wildlife photography (which this article is not about, so keep reading if you’re into other things), I think there is a difference between a sighting and a scene.
A sighting is, “Look, a leopard!” It might be hidden behind half of the branches in Zambia, but there it is. A leopard. It’s beautiful! But with little else to offer, it’s not really a photograph. The leopard is obscured. The light is harsh. All I can see is the back of the head. A sighting, sure. But not a scene. Yet.
It is OK not to raise your camera to your eye. It’s OK to look at what’s in front of you and think, “That’s just not a photograph.” When you’re looking for a photograph that tells a story or something that really moves you—something with mood and emotion—it’s more often not a photograph. That’s what makes it so wonderful in the moments when it is. When all the pieces do come together. A good photograph is a rare thing.
As you read this, I’m on my way to Kenya for the month of February. A group of photographers will join me for the first nine nights, and we’ll all have many opportunities to figure out if something we’re looking at is a sighting or something more: a scene. If we’re not careful, the mistake we’ll make is to forget just how quickly one can become the other.
Go back to me sitting in the Land Rover with the lions and the erstwhile zebra, and imagine you’re there with me. The moment you think, “Well, nothing to see here,” you should become suspicious. And you should pay attention. Because while this is the time that the lionesses will roll over and sleep (nothing to see here), the cubs will play, and the sighting will become a scene.
The seasoned response to “nothing to see here” isn’t “let’s go!”—it’s “let’s wait.” A mere sighting can become an astonishing scene very quickly.
What often transpires in front of our lens never becomes a photograph. We wait and wait, and the pieces never quite align, the composition never materializes, the light fizzles out, and the moment never happens. Fine.
The dues we pay for the best of our images are often paid in the currency of minutes and hours. And sometimes (often, even), the dues we pay don’t see an immediate return.
You can wait for hours without seeing a wolf. You can sit on a street corner and never see anyone walk into the perfect light you’ve waited years to find. But it’s more likely that you won’t see a wolf without waiting for hours. It’s more likely you won’t see someone walk into that light if you don’t wait around in hopes they do.
There is wisdom in looking at something and saying, “There’s not a photograph here,” before moving on. There’s also wisdom in knowing there’s a chance and sticking around to see what happens.
For me, it comes down to odds. If I’ve got an incredible background, some interesting light (or the promise of it), and know there’s a chance (for example) that the lion cub will swat its sister and then climb on the fallen tree behind them in hopes of some play time, then I’ll wait. It’s harder to find a great background in nice light than it is to find a playful lion cub.
If there’s even a chance that waiting can turn the sighting (yawn) into a scene (OMG!), I’ll wait.
The difference between a sighting and a scene lies in the possibilities, or your ability to recognize them. If there’s truly nothing to work with, move along and find something else. But if what you’re looking at is an “almost” (or it feels like it could be), I’d be inclined to stick it out and wait. Doesn’t matter what you photograph. If you’re at almost, wait it out or shoot through it—because almost is rare.
A good photograph happens at the intersection of light, space, and time. You need all three: the right light, the right stuff in the right part of the frame, and the right moment. Two out of three is often worth waiting for, especially if giving up and moving on only takes you somewhere that gives you one out of three—or none at all.
“Nothing to see here.” We’re so quick to say it. Are you sure?
In a world where photographers can very quickly stand on level ground with each other in their ability to use a camera, what if it’s not upgrading to that better camera or that bigger lens, but the simple ability—or willingness—to wait it out that is the difference between making something astonishing, and making nothing at all?
The difference between a sighting and a scene is often just the word “yet,” but don’t read that lightly because getting to yet is hard. Getting to yet is a risk. Getting to yet, if it comes at all, often comes only after wrestling with the fear of missing out on whatever is happening elsewhere while you sit here. Waiting.
One more thing: what if it’s not so much that nothing’s happening yet as it is that you don’t see it yet. When you resist the urge to quickly move on, you give yourself just a moment or two more, not only for something to happen but for you to see what’s already happening. Or to see the possibility that it might. To notice the light in one direction that you didn’t see while looking in another. To see past your expectations of what you hoped was there and see what is there instead. To see something you haven’t seen. Yet.
So much of photography isn’t about what goes on inside the camera but inside the photographer; it’s how we think, feel, and do.
Have you already read Light, Space & Time? I’d love to hear what you think. You can share that with me in the comments below or by leaving a review wherever you purchased the book. Both would make my day.
For the Love of the Photograph, David
The biggest challenges for most photographers are not technical but creative.They are not so much what goes on in the camera but what goes on in the mind of the person wielding it. Light, Space & Time is a book about thinking and feeling your way through making photographs that are not only good, but truly your own. It would make an amazing gift for the photographer in your life, especially if that’s you. Find out more on Amazon.
Among wildlife photographers, it is the long lens that gets all the glory. The bigger the glass, the more serious one is assumed to be about one’s craft. Less a tool than a symbol, sometimes, the bigger telephoto lenses telegraph to the world that we mean business. How I envied those photographers as a younger man, how incredible I imagined their photographs would be. And how disappointed I was when I could finally afford my first big lens, a used Soligor 400/6.3 that—I was shocked to discover at the age of 16—made the animals bigger but did not necessarily make my photographs proportionately better.
Click any of the images in this post to see them much larger (images will open in a new window)
The ability to isolate one’s subject is important; longer lenses are one way to do that. They allow us to get closer (in a manner of speaking) when we might not otherwise be able to do so. Through our photographs, that allows us to show others a perspective or proximity they might never have. And if you’re lucky enough to have a long lens with a wide maximum aperture, you can isolate that subject even more by blurring out distracting backgrounds. More experientially, longer lenses can create a greater sense of intimacy. When you stare down the barrel of a 600mm lens at the magnified face of a leopard, you feel something you might not otherwise ever feel. The connection can feel very real.
But long lenses can also be a bit of a one-trick pony, most especially for the photographer who hasn’t yet learned that filling the frame isn’t the only way to tell a story or convey an emotion.
A portfolio comprised only of centre-punched, fill-the-frame animal portraits may initially feel like eye candy, but on repeated viewings, might also feel like it’s missing some rhythm and variety and begging for some scale and context.
For those who’ve not been subjected to this particular sermon, indulge me with a short detour: there is no such thing as a wildlife lens. And despite the many headlines that assert otherwise in blogs and magazines, there is no such thing as a landscape or portrait lens. There is no ideal focal length for photographs of any genre of photography, and those who tell you otherwise are trying to sell you something, most likely a new lens.
Different focal lengths do different things, and the question when selecting a focal length is not “What are you photographing?” It’s “What do you want it to look like?”
The photographs accompanying this article are among my favourites. They were all made with focal lengths less than 200mm, and most of them could have been made with a 24-105 lens. The widest images allow a greater feeling of depth than a longer lens would have created in the image—a greater sense of place and a feel for the light and the atmospheric mood. This is not necessarily better than what I could have done with a longer lens, but different. And in some cases, that difference means it accomplishes something more powerful.
Don’t get me wrong; I love my long lenses, but I’m just as likely to shoot with a 24-105mm, which you’ll never see on anyone’s “best lenses for wildlife” list.
Here’s what I’m getting at:
Don’t let the lack of a big, sexy lens get in the way of your desire to photograph wildlife if that’s what you want to do. We all work with constraints, and one of those will always be the lenses we have available to us and the focal lengths those represent. Work with what you’ve got. And if the choice is to spend $10K on a lens or spend it on a trip and use the lenses you’ve already got, you’re probably better doing the latter. You can go on a safari with a 24-70 and a 70-200 and still make magic.
Even if you have the long lens, it’s probably not the best tool for the job 100% of the time. There are incredible photographs to be made that are not just tight portraits. Don’t be afraid to put the long lens down and shoot with something shorter. It’s OK; no one’s looking. We know you mean business and won’t think any less of you. Sometimes a lens is just a lens, you know?
I don’t know where the fetish for long lenses comes from, nor why we value them so highly at the expense of wider lenses, especially when they can be so powerful when used well. Perhaps it’s something the camera companies have instilled in us; Lord knows those long lenses aren’t cheap. Whatever it is, think of them as just one tool among many.
The creative photographer isn’t the one with every tool but the one who uses the tools they have well.
For the Love of the Photograph, David
The biggest challenges for most photographers are not technical but creative.They are not so much what goes on in the camera but what goes on in the mind of the person wielding it. Light, Space & Time is a book about thinking and feeling your way through making photographs that are not only good, but truly your own. It would make an amazing gift for the photographer in your life, especially if that’s you. Find out more on Amazon.
Lying in a mud hole, looking up at a white rhino snuffling just inches from my camera, I was having a tough time not giggling or wetting my pants. I might have been a little nervous, but mostly, it was the thrill and the absurdity of it. To be this close to a massive rhinoceros with no remote gear—just me and my camera—was a dream.
No guidance counsellor in any high school anywhere would have suggested this as a viable career choice 35 years ago, but here I was.
I had spent the previous evening photographing wildfires spreading across the savannah, the rhinos silhouetted against the flames, leaping orange and red in scenes of terrible beauty, again thinking, “How in the world is this my life?”
Not long before that, I’d been stripping my pants off in the Land Cruiser to squash the bullet ants that I’d clumsily walked through in the darkness, and which were now biting me with a ferocity I hadn’t felt since standing (again, accidentally) on a colony of fire ants in the Peruvian Amazon. At least I now only have one leg for them to bite.
Nothing ever goes as I thought it would. I end a day on safari thinking, “Well, that was unexpected!” I also feel like a day on safari is its own lifetime. At the end of each day, I look back at photographs I’m downloading and think, “That was today?” The encounters are endless and never anticipated.
Early in this journey, I got a text message from a Kenyan photographer I’ve admired for a couple of years. His name is Gurcharan Roopra (find him on Instagram @gurcharan), and he reached out to tell me he was reading one of my books and was thrilled to find I was following him on Instagram. “Following you?” I wrote back, “I’m practically stalking you!” And from this random moment of connection came 24 hours together at the end of my trip, learning from someone with a very different approach to his work than I have, but a similar spirit. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so creatively challenged. Totally unexpected.
There’s no real lesson in this letter to you. Just a reminder that the zigs and zags of life are part of the joy. Even the most well-planned days are full of the unexpected. That can send us into a tailspin, or it can make us wonder and laugh. I hope it’s the latter for you (though without the bullet ants).
I also wanted to give you a chance to see some of the photographs from this recent trip, perhaps share the wonder. Every trip I wonder if I’ll come back with anything that is even close to how I feel about the places, and the animals, and I’m so thrilled to be returning with what I think is some of my strongest work yet. Click on any of the images to see them larger.
One of my favourite images from this trip is the one above. Two southern white rhinos watch the flames of a wildfire approaching, destroying their home. There’s a story here that’s hard not to feel deep down. Well-told stories can do that—they can touch us in deep places. Not every photograph needs to tell a story, but it’s often the most powerful ones that do.
How are your storytelling chops? I’m giving a presentation on this very topic on March 19 at 4:00 pm PT / 7:00 pm ET, and I’d love to see you there.
My class, Photographic Storytelling: Hooking the Heart & The Imagination, is one of four great presentations hosted by Nic Stover’s Nature Photography Classes. You can find more information here.
Other presenters include Margaret Soraya, Talor Stone, and Sapna Reddy, and they all look fantastic. Cost is $22 each, or you can subscribe to the series for $77. The first presentation is on March 01, so I’ve missed that one, but if you subscribe you can watch the video for any of the series that you miss.
