Guest Post: ‘Capturing Those Special Moments in Time’ by Mitchell Krog

I’ve always had a love for nature and the world around me and photography just opened up my eyes even more to the wonders of this world. To me there is nothing more special than capturing unique moments in time and having them there forever for the world to see. Photography is such a powerful medium because it allows me to show others how I see the world, not how they see it, and that is a gift I never take for granted.

Wildlife photography is a whole lot more than simply clicking a shutter button, it’s about telling a story by capturing the character, expressions and very nature of an animal. If I can stir an emotion in the viewers of my images then I believe my job is done.

I have a few simple golden rules that I not only apply to my photography but also to my life as a whole.

- Patience is the key to obtaining anything you set your mind to.
- Persistence sure does pay off.
- Practice makes perfect.
- Never set yourself up for disappointment.
- Take what is given to you and be grateful for it.
- Make mistakes, lots of them, but better yet, learn from them.

If you’re not willing to be patient as a wildlife and nature photographer then you’re doubtfully ever going to succeed at it. Even if wildlife photography is merely a hobby for you, don’t you want to be the best you can be? Capturing those special moments in time does indeed require lots of patience, lots of mistakes and lots of failures. Many photographers may wait years or even a lifetime for that prize winning image but they wait.

There’s a lot to be said for planning but more often than not with wildlife photography you can plan as much as you like and still not achieve what you set out to do. After all it’s really up to nature to come up with the goods, you cannot force an animal to do anything. You simply have to be there, ready and waiting, camera in hand for when the moment does happen and believe me those moments happen when you least expect it. If you have a specific image in mind that you want to achieve, it could take you years of waiting for that moment to transpire but your patience and persistence will pay off one day.

But make no mistake, if you’re travelling halfway around the world to capture images of a rare and endangered species then for sure you have a lot of planning to do like obtaining permits, visas, flight tickets etc and also getting someone who knows the area to guide you in and out, but that’s only 50% of the job done, you may get there, spend weeks waiting and not capture a single image or even a glimpse of your subject or you may arrive to an entire trip that’s rained out. That’s the game unfortunately and it does carry with it its frustrations but if you simply give up when you don’t achieve something then how do you know that your next trip is not the one when it happens?

The more you practice your wildlife photography, the better you will get at it and if you’re not making mistakes you’re simply not trying hard enough. Only by making mistakes can you learn from them and be better prepared the next time something special happens. There’s no reason to beat yourself up about missing a special moment because you did not know your camera well enough or did not have the right lens. Instead accept the failure, learn from it and you’ll be better prepared the next time.

Beginners to wildlife photography can learn a lot in a short time by going on a photographic safari with a professional company who have guides and photographers who can advise you and teach you some of their tricks right there in the bush. You may only ever need to go on one or two photographic safaris and learn what you need but some people may need a lot more trips, it really depends on how quickly you learn but it’s a great starting point.

With today’s high speed cameras you’ll often be out in the bush with other photographers and when something happens you’ll hear those cameras rattling away like machine guns but that’s not always necessarily the best thing to do. I have high speed cameras and in the past I used to shoot like a tyrant at high frame rates and return home with thousands of very similar images to sort through but this merely makes the selection and deletion process that much harder. Instead I purposely slow down my shooting rate to capture less images but each one is quite different from the next and almost all are in perfect focus. By shooting slower it also forces you to think a little more about the image you are capturing, you look carefully at the composition, you look for potential obstructions or distractions in the image, you make sure you’re not doing silly things like cutting off the animals feet, you look for any potential faults in your image while you’re still there and not when you get home. Also by shooting slower you always know for a fact that you have space in your camera’s memory buffer for the next image, when everyone else around you has filled their buffers and are waiting anxiously to take their next shot, that’s quite often when something special happens and that will be your prize for shooting a bit slower.

Most of all have fun with your wildlife photography, it’s such a privilege to be able to live in South Africa and have access to so much wildlife photography opportunities so when you are in the bush enjoy every moment with and without the camera. When nature does choose to give you a special moment to capture on film, capture it, be thankful and enjoy the moment, you may never see that same thing ever again. If a camera is nowhere nearby, just enjoy the moment and take the memories home with the highest megapixel camera in existence, your human eye.

Mitchell Krog

Mithell’s Links:

• Website: The Living Canvas

Mitchell’s Biography:

During the last few years Mitchell has achieved much recognition with his images, he has had his works published in a number of publications locally and internationally and has received numerous awards and commendations for his images. Mitchell regularly contributes photography articles and images to photographic and lifestyle magazines as well as media outlets and various web sites. He has a strong background in environmental and conservation fields and this gives him a solid understanding and appreciation of the threatened ecosystems and environments which he so often has the privilege to photograph. He has a firm belief that it is difficult to save what cannot be seen and has often used his images for motivating environmental causes.