7 Nature Photography Tips for Beginners With Professional Photographer Jim Clark

1. Know Your Subject

“Be a naturalist first, photographer second. I guarantee your images will be much more appreciated and welcomed by your audience,” explains Jim. “Oh yeah, you’ll have more fun, too!” The best way to photograph nature is to understand nature. Once you gain a deeper knowledge of your subjects, you’ll have an easier time capturing those defining moments.

2. Don’t Just Photograph Nature; Photograph to Be in Nature

Professional photographers enjoy being outside as much as they love capturing that perfect moment. For Jim, he loves how his students have “just as much fun watching an egret patiently wait for the right moment to strike the water as they did actually photographing it.” This art should be about the experience and appreciating this beautiful world, and then about you trying to photograph it.

3. Knowing When to Anticipate and When to Chase

This one is a twofer. Knowing when to wait for the right moment to capture can be hard, but it’s also very important. It involves plenty of patience and having a little know-how (see above tip) to anticipate how a moment might play out. Slow down, observe and wait to see if you can anticipate something incredible. Then be ready.

Once you see a moment beginning to unfold, get to work capturing it. Just remember: Jim says that knowing when to anticipate and when to chase aren’t mutually exclusive. Both depend upon each other to get that perfect photograph.

4. Capture a sense of place.

“I always strive to seek that elusive characteristic in my landscape photography: a sense of place,” says Jim. That’s why immersing yourself in the landscape you’re photographing is so important in becoming a skilled and confident photographer. Let all distractions fade away and try to pinpoint what makes this landscape so unique. Engage all your senses – savor the experience. The more connection you have with the location, the better your photography will stand out and the more your viewers will feel that magic, too.

5. Get eye to eye with wildlife

Though your first inclination might be to remain standing to photograph a small animal, a guaranteed technique to improve your craft is to change your perspective. Look at your subject from a different angle and get low for an up close view. “What makes a lower perspective appealing? The short answer: intimacy,” states Jim. “The viewer gets a sense of looking straight into the animal’s eyes and experiencing the world as the animal does.”

6. Listen

“New photographers tend to focus on what they see, not what they hear. And they fail to take advantage of the moment.” Jim explains that there’s two reasons for listening when photographing nature. The first is to help identify the species you want to photograph. Sometimes the sounds an animal makes will reveal what it is going to do next. The second, and more important, is that nature’s symphony provides an extra level of appreciation. Enjoy the experience!