Right.
Should have a few minutes now...
What makes wildlife photography so special to me?
Pretty well all my spare time has always meant me getting outside, in rain or shine, playing sport or watching wildlife.
I was lucky I guess, that my father and my older sister especially,
loved being outside too - my father would point out things to us, and we'd collect worms and beetles, frogspawn etc... and bring it home. Very bad in this day and age I suppose!
We even brought a COW home once, though my ma made us walk it back immediately!
I have always had a childlike fascination for the living things around me.
Didn't play much with toys when I was a bairn - I'd rather go outdoors and chase squirrels or pigeons, or check on my baby bath tub pond.
All through my degree course (almost 15 years ago now...) even though I studied Zoology, I approached the subject with what I would like to think of as artistic eyes.
I was interested in the whole thing. Every day I would go out (and still do as often as I can), and almost be blown over by all the wonderful life around me.
Not the Tigers on television (or in the Zoo)etc.. (like Zan said), but the Black Grouse at their lek, or the Weasels that I'd see patrolling the hedgerows, or the colours of a HorseFly's eye, or a Spotted Flycatcher at its hunting post. Not really in the science behind it, the artistic merit of it all. I had trouble believing that all this wonderful stuff was brought about by a chemical coincidence. I am about as far from religious as one could be, but I sometimes still wrestle with that. Its
my religion anyway...
The change in the seasons, the sheer joy of being somewhere where no-one else was at the time, and maybe nobody had been for years and years - and not in the middle of nowhere either, far from it.
The noises of a forest at dusk, and the light at dawn. The smell of the heather on a moor.
It all made me feel very,
very good to be alive. It still does. Long may it continue.
I wanted to find out what that bird was singing. I wanted to know if that bird was something I could sneak up on and get a good look at.
I wanted to know if I sat for hours by a badger sett, I'd see these mysterious creatures. I wanted to drink, and keep drinking from all the stuff that mankind had not got to yet. And learn as much as I could.
The photography? (I got there in the end!
)
Well. To be honest, I've only recently really started to get into that about one year ago. Before then I drew
a lot. Then it was bad photographs with my phone (not much of a camera eh?) and a borrowed old film camera from my Dad and also my (soon to be) father in law. In november last year a fellow WABer sold me his old digital camera, and its all kicked off again.
I photograph things now for many reasons.
In no particular order....
To produce a piece of art. An aesthetically pleasing (or displeasing!) or interesting image. I like to think twice. Subject AND composition. Equally important, and the composition part is lacking in so many wildlife photographs.
Something people don't see that often, or miss entirely, because they fail to notice.
A spiders eyes for example. or the Peregrine sitting high above them in the city.
The colour of a collared dove's eyes or the simple beauty of a row of bullrushes by a lake.
It amazes me how people don't use their eyes. There is SO much to see. And
SO MUCH to miss, if you don't look properly...
I also am learning every single time I go out (with or without camera I suppose).
I find things that an awful lot of people would consider irrelevant or mundane, fascinating. If I can capture any of that in a permanent record - a strange behaviour for example captured maybe after a night of painstaking waiting - then that's fantastic.
I am also starting to consider some forms of life more and more, and photography is absolutely invaluable in that process.
I fully admit I knew virtually nothing about fungi before about two years ago, and now (with the help of WABers of course), I know a fair amount.
Insects are another thing I have learned so much about recently through photography.
You couldn't wipe the smile off my face after I photographed (and then identified by cross-referencing my image with a fieldguide) my first tiny wee ruby-tailed wasp last summer. And that was with my phone! WHO KNOWS what I can do with this new camera of mine this year!
I feel at home outside. I am lucky that I have found a partner who not only shares my passions about this, but also can do what I do too. Better sometimes.
She'll spot the fungi these days, and I'll take its photograph.
She'll see the falcon, and I'll probably just gawp at it. And she is starting to learn the bird calls too now. Its all GOOD!
More importantly than that, she (like me) can spend literally hours and hours and days and weeks outside, getting hot, freezing, soaked, bitten by midges, scratched by thorns, dirty, just to experience what the world around us can offer.
I'll NEVER take my eyesight for granted. I will continue to use it as much as I can, for as long as I can, including using it to take photographs...
So I take photographs to wonder, to learn, to smile, to hunt (as MH68 said) and to remember we belong to a living world. A fascinating world. A wonderfully wild and beautiful world.
Now if I (we) can bring a little part of that world inside, in the form of photographs (which lets face it, don't often do the ACTUAL sight or event or view justice, do they?), well then I'll keep photographing these things, the best I can.
Thats the reason why I like seeing other peoples' wildlife photography too. Generally much more skilfull than me (I'm a newbie remember!) it inspires me and makes me think about my favourite wildlife and wild places. It teaches me too. I can't get enough of good wildlife photography exhibitions. (Lucky I have a sister (my eldest sister, mentioned early in the thread) who can get me in free to many of the big ones!)
Anyway.
Like Led Zep, I've rambled on.
Doug
Linear Mode
