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Wildlife photographers tend to be a shoot from the hip kind of crowd.  It’s not that we take composition for granted, its just that the longer we take to set up the shot, the greater the chance that our subject will walk away.  When the subject doesn’t move, as occurs in landscape photography, we have the opportunity to sit back and plan out our shots in greater detail.  This offers advantages and disadvantages.  On the one hand, time gives us the opportunity to perfect the shot.  This is a good thing.  On the other hand, sometimes we take the analysis to the extreme.  You can some photographers agonizing over every aspect of the image.  Should that rock be included?  What if the clouds move?  Should I set up here or over there?  What if I wait too long and that tree grows across my frame!?!  All good questions, but there comes a point where you need to make a decision and press the shutter button (Can you tell that I am a first and foremost a wildlife photographer?).

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Lets assist the decision making process by looking at one aspect of composition.  Where should we place the horizon?  The default for most photographers is the middle of the frame.  The idea seems to be that cutting the image in half will give the best results.  Lets be real here, has cutting anything in half ever made it look better?  Arbitrarily cutting the image in half is a subconscious way of avoiding making a decision.  Take a close look at the three images in this post.  Do you see any similarities?  While they are all landscape shots (and yes, it pained me to take them, but I promise I only did it because there were no animals in sight), the subjects (Bryce Canyon National Park and Serengeti National Park) are thousands of miles apart.  Yet these three pictures share something in common.  None of them has the horizon near the center of the frame.

Years ago I got some advise I am going to pass along.  When taking a picture, decide which is more important, the land or the sky.  They might both be interesting, but I guarantee one caught your attention more then the other.  Once you have decided, frame your picture to showcase that part of the scene.  If the land is the star, limit the sky to the top quarter of the frame.  If the sky is the main point of focus, move the land toward the bottom edge.  In the picture of Bryce Canyon (top), the canyon is the subject, not the sky.  Therefore the canyon fills the scene and the sky only appears in the top quarter of the frame.  The African savannah picture (middle) emphasizes the space of the savannah and the scarcity of trees.  The sky does not assist in the story I ma telling, so it is minimized.  The image of the African sunrise (bottom), on the other hand, is about the sky.  The ground is a dark silhouette which does nothing but create an end point for the colors so I moved it near the bottom.

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Good composition is about emphasizing the important parts of an image while minimizing distractions.  Placing your horizon near the top or bottom of the frame is a great choice for creating dynamic photographs.  The rest of the decisions are up to you.

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The next time you’re out taking pictures, ask yourself an important question, “What am I taking a picture of?”  It sounds simple, but we hardly ever stop long enough to really think about the answer.  But the answer is extremely important.  As photographers, we are constantly scanning the world around us in search of things to photograph.  When something captures our attention, we pull out the camera.  Too often, however, the resulting photograph falls short.  The problem is our eyes.  The human eye is amazing.  Without conscious thought, our eyes can focus on one thing while ignoring everything else.  The camera doesn’t do this, which causes our pictures contain too much information.

How do we overcome this challenge?  Again, the answer is deceptively simple: determine what you are photographing and don’t include anything else.  Easy to say, harder to do.  One of the best techniques I have found was given to me by fellow nature photographer John Shaw.  John’s suggestion is to describe the subject of the image in words.  Actually stop and say the words.  It might sound silly, but it works.  If your image is best described as, “a picturesque shot of a variety of wildlife as they wander through the trees and fields on their way to the lake at the base of the mountain,” then you probably don’t have a very strong image.  You are trying to include too much in a single frame, causing your viewer to get lost in their search for a focal point.  I will be the first to admit that wildlife, trees, fields, lakes, and mountains are all excellent photographic subjects, but don’t they each deserve to star in their own image instead of sharing the spotlight?  The idea is to simplify the picture to its bare essences.  When you describe the subject, it should only take one or two words.  Anything else is a distraction.  Like the description, the image itself should contain no distractions.  If it is not your subject, remove it from the frame.  You can always include it in the next picture.  One of the main jobs we have as photographers is to bring order out of the visual chaos that surrounds us.  Isolating the subject helps to clarify our visual message and makes the viewer want to see more.

The owl photograph above is a perfect example of a clear, simple subject.  When asked to describe it, two words come to mind, “Eagle Owl.”  Nothing more, nothing less.

The image was created using a Canon 1D mark 2, 120-300mm Sigma lens, at 250 ISO.  The lens was mounted on a Gitzo carbon fiber tripod with a Wimberly tripod head.  This Eurasian Eagle Owl was part of a wildlife rehab center’s educational program.  The bird had been permanently injured and could not be released back into the wild.  It was living out its remaining days as a spokes person (or is that a spokes bird) for raptors everywhere.