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Photo Masterclass part 15: Urban and garden wildlife
To improve your photography of urban wildlife, download the pdf at the bottom of the page.
Many photographers assume that you have to travel into the ‘wilds’ to take great pictures of wildlife. Not true! There are lots of beautiful, unusual and often poignant opportunities on your doorstep – you just need to know how to make the most of them.
Common and familiar species that you find close to home tend to be ignored by many wildlife photographers. They are considered too obvious or insufficiently exotic to make good subjects. But the fact that these animals are so often taken for granted means there are more opportunities to take inspirational pictures of them.
Just think about it – there are fewer memorable images of house sparrows or grey squirrels, for example, than of snowy owls or elephants.
With such a wealth of potential subjects nearby, you don’t need to fly to far-flung corners of the world. But when you do travel, remember to keep your eyes peeled in suburbia as well as out in the wilderness.
As any great wildlife photographer will testify, it’s not what you photograph, it’s the way you photograph it.
A new approach
There are two ways of tackling urban and garden wildlife photography. The first is to make the most of all the animals that are accustomed to people and therefore more approachable than their wilder counterparts. The second is to place them firmly in their urban environment to add a unique dimension to your pictures.
But it’s not quite as easy as walking out of your back door and hoping for the best. You do need to plan ahead and use your imagination as much as with any other form of wildlife photography.
So this month we’ll be getting down low, climbing up high, moving backwards, forwards and from side to side, thinking laterally, getting up early and staying out late to take uncommonly good images of some common subjects.
MEET THE EXPERT: Laurent Geslin, UK
Originally from Brittany, Laurent is a professional wildlife photographer. Now based in London, he is best known for his images of urban wildlife.
Laurent Geslin travels the world in search of suitable subjects, but still makes time for photography closer to home. He has a small urban garden that is completely wild and home to hedgehogs, squirrels, brown rats, foxes and all manner of garden birds. It’s even occasionally visited by a peregrine.
Currently working on a book about photographing wildlife in towns, Laurent finds as much inspiration just outside his back door as he does on safari in Africa. Instead of leopard, lion, elephant, buffalo and rhino, his ‘Big Five’ are badger, fox, heron, hedgehog and grey squirrel.
Fantastic Mr Fox
“My great passion is urban foxes and I never tire of photographing them,” Laurent says. “They are a dream because they are so much easier to photograph than their country cousins.”
The biggest challenge for Laurent is including a sense of the urban environment. “Backgrounds are as important in urban and garden wildlife photography as in any other form of wildlife photography,” he says. “In fact, they can be even more important, because they can’t be too distracting yet need to tell a story.”
He smiles as he describes moments when all the elements of a picture have come together. “A real coup was photographing Canada geese flying over Canary Wharf, here in London – you don’t get much more iconic than that.”
One challenge he has to face is people. “I do get passers-by crowding round me to find out what I’m doing,” he laughs. “I don’t mind, but I sometimes have to tell them that I’m working and need to be quiet.”
Laurent’s top urban and garden wildlife photography tips:
- Make your garden wildlife-friendly
There are many excellent books on wildlife gardening that provide plenty of good advice, but there are four golden rules – grow endemic plants, put out feeders, don’t be too tidy and never use pesticides. If you have the space, it’s also worth building a simple pond – it will pay dividends in photo opportunities.
- Learn to see potential pictures
There is never a shortage of wildlife subjects in urban and garden environments. Don’t just shoot the obvious robins, blue tits, hedgehogs and grey squirrels – look for some of the less obvious species, such as spiders and herons. Remember that everything can be photographed in many different ways and in various weather conditions.
YOUR STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE: Mark Carwardine shows you how to apply the theory to get the perfect picture.
Work with a single species
- Pick a common species, such as a mallard, and take as many different pictures as possible. It’s a great way to train your eye.
- Research your subject to identify a range of potential shots. These might include different plumages, interesting behaviour such as courtship, feeding or flying, large gatherings, intimate close-ups and so on.
- Identify locations where it should be possible to photograph the animal in an iconic urban environment, such as a town lake with people strolling in the background or in front of a distinctive building.
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There is so much that you can
There is so much that you can get from the photos. The options are endless with this. There is so much great talent that goes into the photos.
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