Tag:gear
I was about to photograph a beautiful family of cheetah in gorgeous morning light when my camera returned an error message and wouldn’t—no matter what I did—focus. It wouldn’t even fire. By the time I got my lens swapped onto another body, the action was all over, and I was down a camera at the beginning of a month-long trip. Or was I? Back at camp, I discovered the problem: the flange on the camera, the one to which my lenses […]
The right gear matters. I get a dozen emails a month that start with “I know you don’t like to talk about gear, but…” So let me stop you right there. I love talking about gear. As long as we’re talking about gear in terms of how it allows us to make the photographs we want to make, and doesn’t involve too much pixel-peeping, I can talk about it all day long, or until I get distracted by something interesting […]
Among wildlife photographers, it is the long lens that gets all the glory. The bigger the glass, the more serious one is assumed to be about one’s craft. Less a tool than a symbol, sometimes, the bigger telephoto lenses telegraph to the world that we mean business. How I envied those photographers as a younger man, how incredible I imagined their photographs would be. And how disappointed I was when I could finally afford my first big lens, a used […]
The notes below are specific to Kenya but having done safaris in Zimbabwe and South Africa as well, most of these suggestions apply just as well to other places. I’ve been asked over the years, both by my safari clients and others, what and how to pack for a trip like this, so it felt like this might be a good time to explore that for those who are curious. If you and I were sitting down over a glass of wine […]
Spoiler alert: 15 years ago I found the perfect camera bag, and I’m giving one away. Keep reading. I am embarrassed by how many camera bags I own. Unlike the cameras and lenses that have come into my life and served their purposes before being sold to find a new life with someone else, my camera bags seem to have entered the house through a one-way door. Perhaps you share my shame. Tidy to a fault in other areas of […]
This is a quick one but I’ve had some questions about the way I photograph bears and rhinos so close without frightening the animals or jeopardizing my own safety, so I’m posting this as a place to direct people interested in this. If you look at the picture above you can see two cameras, one is mine and the other belongs to my friend Jon. The camera sits on a motorized tripod head. On top of the camera itself is […]
In two days, I pack the truck and head north up Vancouver Island to meet my wolf guide, Tom, before spending two weeks camped on a remote island, waiting for coastal wolves to wander in front of my cameras. 🤞 Maybe some otters, bears, or eagles, too. I can’t wait. Packing for a trip is always a mix of excitement and indecision. When I go to Kenya, I’m on autopilot; I know the gear and how to pack it. I’ve got packing […]
There is a powerful argument to be made for photographing what intrigues you, what you love, or that by which you are obsessed. Making photographs takes time, so that curiosity, love, or obsession serves you well when your best work demands not fractions of a second or even minutes, but hours, days, or—in the case of longer projects—even years. Bears have become a growing obsession for me. I don’t know where it comes from or what part of me these bears touch […]