Editor’s Note - Thumbnails are links to larger images, presented in slide show format.

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My latest project is a book on "How to Photograph the Canadian Rockies." In it, there are four chapters detailing precise photographic techniques useful for both mountain and general nature photography. The other chapters list the best spots, time of day and season, and creative options for handling each location in Kananaskis, Kootenay, Yoho, Banff, and Jasper National Parks. Scattered throughout the book are some "meaty" nature photography tips that will be useful when visiting the Canadian Rockies or when doing nature photography in general. To whet your appetite for the book, which will be released in the spring of 2005, I am including a small sampling of these nature photography tips here.

Photo 1 - Butterfly Photography Made Easy

Here is a great tip from one of Canada’s best wildlife photographers, Wayne Lynch. First, look for a cluster or large grouping of flowers such as aster, fleabane, goldenrod, or yarrow. Next, watch for a few minutes to see if butterflies are visiting the flowers. If they are, you have found a spot that will work well with this technique. The butterflies go from flower to flower mining nectar. Once the nectar is sucked up from one plant, they move on to the next looking for fresh nectar. The problem for photographers is that the butterflies don’t stay on the flowers long enough to get well-composed and sharp photos. To slow the butterflies down, so they linger longer on each flower head, simply spray sugar-water onto the flowers (Wayne carries a small spray bottle for this purpose). Now you should easily have enough time to photograph a butterfly as it settles on a sprayed flower to slurp up the buffet of sugar liquid offered.

Photo 2 - Watch the Eyes!

As the old saying goes, "the eye is the window to the soul." Generally the eye will be the focal point of any wildlife portrait. Nothing will make a wildlife portrait come to life faster than a sparkle and sharp focus on the eye. When composing animal photos try to place the face and especially the eye in the frame according to the compositional "rule of thirds." The most critical point of focus in the frame is usually the eye. We will accept an image where the rest of the animal's face or body is blurred, as long as the eye is sharp. A "sparkle" of light in the eye is also desirable to give the animal "life." Waiting to shoot until you see a catch-light in the animal's eyes will really improve your photos. If the animal is in shade, is under overcast light, or it is backlit you can use a flash to add the critical "life light" to the eyes. If you set your flash to underexpose by about two stops, the flash will not overpower the natural light but will still add a distinctive catch-light.

Photo 3 - Don’t forget the Intimate Details

It’s easy to be entranced by the grand vistas in the Canadian Rockies. With spot after spot offering drop-dead views, many photographers, including myself, seem to focus only on getting "the big picture." That’s a shame because often, all around us, right beside our feet, are intimate details that would make wonderful photographs, and tell a more complete story of the Rockies if only we took the time to look. A droplet of water resting on a leaf, a Gray Jay’s feather resting on a bed of lodgepole pine needles, red strawberry leaves outlined in frost after a cool fall night, or the tracks of a coyote in a sandbar along the river often tell us just as much or more than the photos of soaring peaks over alpine lakes. So yes, make those big stunning scenery images, but also look a little closer, nose to the ground, for the intimate details that will make your Rockies story more complete.

Photo 4 - Squint Your Eyes

Film and digital sensors see contrast differently than the human eye does. Where our eyes see detail in both deep shadows and screaming highlights, film and digital sensors see only blobs of dark and light. Slide film and digital sensors have a narrow latitude for exposure (the ability to record detail in differing values of light) so contrast is very often a problem except in even, cloudy-day light. Print film can hold detail in more contrasty scenes but it is still not as capable as our eyes. In the real world this creates a problem. Where we see colourful flowers in the shade, under a tree, plus puffy white clouds in the sky, film and digital sensors will only see pure black shadows and washed out skies. Somehow we need to be able to "see like a camera."

The answer is to squint your eyes. Go out on a sunny day and squeeze your eyes nearly shut. What you see through the little slit is like a preview of how your camera will record the light. The shadows will go black and the highlights will remain bright. Now if you photograph this scene, the film or digital sensor will give you an image looking similar to the way you saw it through your squinty eyes (sans the eyelashes, of course). So if the scene still looks good while you are squinting, it should look great recorded by the camera. If it doesn’t look so hot, then reconsider the lighting (e.g. time of day), or try a different composition where the distribution of shadow and light is more aesthetically pleasing.

Photo 5 - Model Releases

For the photographer interested in outdoor recreation and action photography, model releases are an important consideration. It used to be that anyone, anywhere could be photographed in public without worry to the photographer. Now with privacy rights becoming more and more important to the general public, a wise photographer should never photograph anyone in public without permission. Verbal permission is no longer enough. To protect yourself you now need a signed model release that clearly spells out your intended uses of the photograph (a search on the web for "photography" and "model releases" will get you started if you’ re not familiar with these legal forms). "Wait a second," you think, "I am not a professional and I don’t plan to publish my photographs, why do I need a model release?" Well, you never know what will happen to those photos. Even just displaying the photos on your personal web page or entering them in a photo contest can get you into serious trouble. As the old saying goes, better safe than sorry. If you can’t get a model release, or are too shy to ask permission, then you are better off not taking photos of strangers.

Photo 6 - Get Hyper-focused!

To get the maximum possible depth-of-field from your wide-angle lens, set the aperture on your lens to f22, and then manually focus your lens to the distance in feet indicated on the chart. The resulting photo will be in sharp focus from one half the distance set on the lens to infinity (that’s way out there!). For example, with a 20mm lens set at f22 and focused to 2.3 feet, the range of sharp focus in the scene will span the distance from 1.2 feet in front of the camera to infinity. Once you manually focus your lens to the proper distance do not refocus or use auto-focus while photographing your chosen scene.

Photo 7 - Heed the Boy Scout’s Motto - "Be Prepared"

Whenever I travel in the Canadian Rockies I usually have my camera and telephoto lens within quick reach for roadside wildlife photography. While shooting for this book, I became a little lax in following my own advice. Once, after numerous 5 AM risings, I slept in until 8 AM to catch up on some much needed sleep. Because it was later in the morning and I figured I had missed the best light, I left my camera packed away in the back of my camper.

Five-minutes down the road, four streaks of fur zipped across the road. As I approached the spot, I noticed a cow elk swimming in the Athabasca River. Another flash of movement caught my eye and there, right below the shoulder of the highway, swimming fiercely against the raging current was a Timber Wolf! Nearby, two more wolves paced the riverbank quartering the elk as it floundered in the strong current. I thought to myself, "should I dig out my camera gear and chance missing the action or possibly even scare off the wolves? Or should I just sit and watch this rare event play out?" I chose the latter and watched for several minutes as the swimming wolf paddled heroically upstream only ten meters from my vehicle. The elk struggled but finally reached the far shore and the wolves gave up the chase. The swimming wolf climbed up the bank, and stood on the shoulder of the road, steam rising from its wet fur, its body backlit in the morning sun, no more than five meters away from me. "Aaargh!! Why didn’t I grab the camera?" With a powerful shake, water spraying over the pavement, the wolf jogged over to its pack mates and the group ran along the ditch parallel to the road. Finally, I dug out my camera, slapped on a 300mm lens and drove past the wolves. I pulled over and waited. I managed to get a single panned shot of one of the animals as it jogged by. As I sat on the side of the road, shaking with excitement, I vowed never again to leave my camera buried deep in my vehicle while driving in the Rockies.

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About the author...

Darwin Wiggett and his wife Anita Dammer are the proprietors of Natural Moments Photography. Anita has 17 years experience as staff photographer for the Glenbow Museum in Calgary and is currently doing freelance stock photography and is the editor-in-chief of Photo Life magazine. Darwin has been shooting stock since 1990, and has two books published by Whitecap in Vancouver; Darwin Wiggett Photographs Canada and Seasons in the Rockies. Together they specialize in landscape, nature, animal, humor and kid photography and are represented by various stock agencies worldwide. Their primary stock agent is First Light in Toronto, Canada. You can view more of Darwin's work in his online portfolio.

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