- Division of Fisheries and Wildlife
Media Contact for Wild and focused: Tips for photographing wildlife
Media Contact, MassWildlife

If you’re looking to spend more time outdoors and get in touch with your sense of wonder, wildlife photography is a fantastic hobby that lets you enjoy nature while expressing your creativity. With just a camera and a bit of patience, you can transform simple hikes into thrilling scavenger hunts, searching for that perfect shot! While traditional cameras and interchangeable lenses offer endless options for artistic expression, you don’t need fancy equipment to enjoy photography. In fact, all of the photos you see in this article were submitted to our photography contest last year. You can get started today with a basic camera or your smartphone and a few simple tips.
Be patient
Patience is the name of the game when it comes to wildlife photography. The best photos of wildlife often require a photographer to spend time in the outdoors waiting to capture the perfect moment in time. Because we can’t control the behavior of wild animals, the best thing to do is to sit quietly, observe, and wait. Although we can’t predict their movements, doing research ahead of time about kind of habitats certain species prefer, what times of day they are most active, and signs to look or listen for to see if that species has been in the area will give you the best chance of success.
Beyond patience for your subjects, it’s also important to have patience for yourself if you are a beginner. Sometimes you are going to miss the perfect shot by just a second. Sometimes you will accidentally have your camera or phone on the wrong settings. This is all part of the learning process and will get better with practice.
Be respectful of wildlife and their habitats
The goal of photographing wildlife is to provide a snapshot into the lives of our local animals. If you get too close or disturb the animal, you won’t be able to witness and photograph their natural behaviors. Be an ethical wildlife photographer by keeping a reasonable distance from wildlife and rely on your camera’s zoom to get “closer” to your subject. If you get too close to an animal, it will likely change behavior and may stop feeding, look at you, vocalize, appear nervous, or flee. Wildlife may also be disturbed by noise, so it is important to speak and move quietly. If they change behavior, make sure to back off slowly. As an ethical photographer, it is also important to leave an area cleaner than you found it, follow rules on public land, and get permission in advance before entering private land.
Get creative
While there are many logistics to consider in wildlife photography, there are also many exciting ways to show off your creativity. After you become familiar with the specifics of your camera, you can play around with different settings, photo composition, and depth of field (DOF).
Composition is how you arrange the different elements of your photo. While there are many logistics to consider in wildlife photography, composition is where you get to make creative choices. Think of the left and right sides of any image are like walls, the top of the image is a ceiling, and the bottom is a floor. Keep that in mind when composing your photographs: The visual elements in your photos need room to breathe. You can see a great example of this in the winning photo from last year’s photo contest of a pouncing bobcat, shown below. The bobcat is in the right side of the frame and the left side remains open, giving the bobcat the visual space to jump. If the bobcat was on the left side of the frame, it would look like it was jumping into a wall.
Depth of field (DOF) is a photography term that describes the part of your photo that is sharp and in focus. DOF is a critical creative control in photography because our eyes will always initially focus on the portion of a photograph that is in focus. You can direct the viewer’s eye to emphasize the parts of your and reduces the visual noise in less important parts of your image. You may have played around with DOF already by using “Portrait” mode on your cell phone camera which will automatically bring a subject into focus and blur the background. Having a smoother background will help viewers be able to focus on the wildlife in your photos and keep them from being distracted by the habitat in the background. You can see a great example of this from our photo contest last year in this photo of an American river otter.
Practice, practice, practice
Just like any skill, practice is important to becoming a proficient wildlife photographer. Try starting with species that are easier to find such as squirrels, rabbits, insects, song birds or plants. This will make it easier to practice using your equipment and try different settings without waiting long for a wildlife sighting.
Most photographers take many photos to get a few good ones so don’t be afraid to fill up your memory card. Just like a sports team that reviews game footage, review your photos on a larger screen when you get home to see which techniques and settings worked best. You can also practice using photo editing programs to adjust many features of your photo, including lighting, contrast, and color balance.
Inspiration can be all around us. You don’t have to be in the wilderness to capture a beautiful image. Sometimes we just have to look at our neighborhood or backyard from a new angle or through a different lens to capture an extraordinary image. Even if you don’t shoot a masterpiece, the “practice time” in nature is actually the reward.
Looking for more guidance about cameras, lenses, and settings? Check out this recent article from our Massachusetts Wildlife magazine, “Photography Fundamentals.”