Wildlife Photography How To

Have you ever wished you could photograph colorful frogs, exotic birds, and tropical forest landscapes all in the same day? If so, then a trip to the tropics may be in order for your next photo adventure.

Without a doubt, this month's Wildlife and Nature assignment brought out the best in Shutterbug readers. There were so many excellent entries, we could've easily picked twice as many favorites and still felt we left some great shots out. In the end, we narrowed it down to 10 wildlife and nature images that truly stood out.

Wildlife and nature photography is certainly a niche market but it turns out to be bigger than many think. According to our contributing photographers in this month’s column, photos of nature and wildlife can be sold for a broad range of uses, including stock, editorial, book publishing, interior design, fine art, and even assignment. Other important questions we ask our wildlife and nature photographers this month include what does it take to make your passion for these subjects a business? How do you market and promote your images?

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in northeastern Alaska consists of 19,286,722 acres along the Alaskan North Slope, and supports a greater diversity of flora and fauna than anywhere else in the Arctic Circle. It was established in 1960 and is governed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It receives only about 1,500 visitors a year.

Ok, this should give you a good chuckle this morning. Photographer Tony Northrup has teamed up with his wife Chelsea, who's also a photographer, to create a hilarious video called “Stuff that Annoys Wildlife Photographers.”

To photograph the wild horses of the Outer Banks of North Carolina you have to deal with the fact that they are indeed wild and thus not particularly welcoming of a photographer’s attention.
But first you have to deal with the Outer Banks, a 200-mile stretch of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina. “It’s important to have an awareness of time, tide, and weather,” Lisa Cueman says of the location. “You can get into your photography, but not so much that you lose a sense of your surroundings.”

When photographing animals on an African safari, sharp photos are a gift to bring home and it all centers on proper technique. Use the “sweet spot” on the lens; with both of my shorter lenses it was around f/5.6 or f/8. On the longer zoom, I found f/5 or f/5.6 gave me needle-sharp and distortion-free images. With the animal at rest, always put that focusing spot on the eye. On longer distances or perhaps with the animal moving, place that spot on the shoulder or flank to keep a decent depth of field throughout their length.