Environmental Wildlife Photography
A wildlife photography blog by Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire based landscape photographer Rob Thorley Photography.
Today I set out to capture some environmental wildlife photography images at Knypersley Reservoir. Spoiler alert . . . I failed.
Scott Walker produced a really good video on YouTube discussing the difference between a portrait and an environmental wildlife photograph. If you haven’t seen it it’s well worth a look. His YouTube channel is called “Walks On The Wild Side” and you’ll find it in his playlist.
So, yes today was an epic fail really. I maybe got one shot, possibly two that would accurately fit into the “environmental wildlife” category but all in all I didn’t achieve what I set out to do.
Before I get too far ahead of myself I’ll give you my understanding of what environmental wildlife photography is. Essentially you’re shooting wider and capturing your subject in its natural habitat and the two elements (subject and habitat) combine to tell the story of the image. Simple.
Scott gives some good examples in his video and the one that stuck out was the shots he did of a Swallow. He’d captured one sitting on a fence post, which was a nice shot. Although it was a reasonably wide shot the background was blurred out and it could have been anywhere, hence its effectively a portrait, regardless of being shot wide. He then showed an image of a Swallow perched on a barn window frame. It was similar in width to his other image but this image captured the wooden window frame, and elements of the barn that were sufficiently in focus. With the two elements being sufficiently in focus you could tell what they were and knew where the bird was. Achieving that you have an environmental wildlife photograph i.e. a photograph that has a story.
So, given that I knew and understood all of this how could it go so wrong I hear you ask. I have no idea is the honest answer.
The two shots below you could possibly class as environmental wildlife photographs . . . maybe. Let me know in the comments what you think as I’m not one hundred percent sure by any stretch.
The rest of the images on reflection and another viewing of Scott’s video don’t really tell any “story” at all other than a bird in the woodland, so I don’t think you call call them environmental wildlife photographs. I’ve added them to the slideshow below. Have a look and let me know what you think in the comments.
You can view more images from my gallery of other wildlife.
