The wider view
Elephants in wonderful soft pre-dawn light with mist, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.
Shot at 170mm @ f/5.6, 1/100s, ISO 2200
Wildlife photography invariably involves using a long telephoto lens. Getting close to a wild animal through the lens is a rewarding moment. You want to catch the animal in its full glory – every detail - and capture a strong image, a good portrait, action maybe or an animal’s behaviour. Most of the images on this website will fall into this category, namely a relatively close-up view of wildlife. There is nothing wrong with that, indeed filling the frame with a wild animal requires patience and fieldcraft and is highly rewarding.
A typical ‘animalscape’ of an impala in Zambia.
Shot at 130mm @ f/8, 1/160s, ISO 400
But, sometimes it can be beneficial to take a different approach, and deliberately ‘go wide’, indeed very wide. Close ups can become a tad repetitive and ‘samey’. For example, how many close ups of elephants do you need? Often when I return from Africa, I end up with many similar elephant shots filling the frame. Unless there is an element of unique action or interaction, these images are often discarded. I’ve seen it / done it before.
Elephants are huge animals, and they easily fill the frame with a telephoto lens. This can create a strong sense of how powerful these animals are. But by taking the opposite approach, and by going very wide and putting the elephants in the landscape, you can project something else. Even elephants can seem a bit vulnerable in a larger context. You are now telling a different story.
A Coot running on water - Richmond Park, London.
Shot at 70mm @ f/8, 1/160s, ISO 100
Going wide can sometimes be the only option if you cannot get particularly close to wildlife. But often, with a telephoto lens at hand, you have the option. In this case, by all means go in close, but also think about going wide – as wide as possible. Many animals live in a fabulously beautiful landscape which can be somewhat lost when you focus solely on the animal. The surrounding scenery can be stunning, but this doesn’t get captured adequately. Stepping back and taking in the wider landscape can be highly rewarding.
Leopard in Zambia. By going wide the story is about the gully where the Leopard hides when it hunts.
Shot at 210mm @ f/5.6, 1/250s, ISO 1600
A wide shot of wildlife in its surroundings, also called ‘animalscapes’, can be very powerful in communicating how wildlife interacts with its habitat. It sounds easy, just use a wider lens and bring in more of the surrounds, but a good animalscape needs careful composition and thought. It combines wildlife photography and landscape photography approaches – capturing the static with movements.
As such, it can be tricky to pull off. By the time you’ve thought through the landscape composition the animals will probably have moved (most likely behind a bush ;-) and the moment is missed. You don’t have the time usually available for pure landscape photography – it is like doing landscape photography at speed.
Buffalos at sunset in Kenya. Going wide to capture the herd in the dry dust.
Shot at 200mm @ f/2.8, 1/2500s, ISO 64
It helps to familiarise yourself with the environment and to understand the pattern of animal behaviour in the area. If a composition is missed – then wait – animals are creatures of habit. Another elephant may come into position soon and you’ll have another shot at the image you want.
Even an elephant can look small! Laikipia, Kenya.
Shot at 40mm @ f/8, 1/2500s, ISO 500
Going wide does not necessarily mean a wide-angle lens. Whilst clearly a good tool for a wide shot, often a telephoto lens is the right tool for great animalscapes as they compress the composition. Very wide lenses can be tricky to use and create the right balance between the close and the distant elements in the image. Indeed, all the images in this blog were captured with relatively long focal lengths (70mm all the way up to 560mm).
A wide view projects a sense of the vast grasslands on the Laikipia plateau in Kenya.
Shot at 400mm @ f/2.8, 1/2500s, ISO 64
There is nothing wrong with going ‘close’. Indeed, being able to get close to wildlife (with due respect to the animals) and ‘fill the frame’ is often highly rewarding – it gives you a sense of being there with the animals. The fieldcraft, the patience, the stalking, the observation, the feeling of inching closer is a wonderful part of photographing wildlife. But a wider view can create stunning images putting the animals in the context of its often impressively beautiful habitat. So, mix it up! One of my aims for 2025 is to pay more attention to the wider view – and capture more animalscapes.
Arguably not an ‘animalscape’ but still quite wide avoiding the temptation to zoom in on the Shoebill to create a sense of the swamp-land it inhabits on Lake Victoria, Uganda
Shot at 560mm @ f/4, 1/3200s, ISO 1400
A stunning pre-dawn landscape! It would have been a pleasing image even without the elephants.
Shot at 180mm @ f/5.6, 1/125s, ISO 1000