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Latest review for Wildlife Through a Nikon Lens
25th July 2007
“There’s only one way to do anything and that’s the very best way you can”. These were the words with which George Weston inspired his grandson, Chris. Chris has carried this advice with him and despite apparently stumbling into a career in photography, is now one of the UK’s finest wildlife photographers. He’s the author of many other books already, and writes for the photographic press, but this is the first title to be published under his own imprint, Chris Weston Publishing Ltd.
So does the world need another “how to” book on wildlife photography? The answer is probably “no” but then this book is a bit different from the usual fodder, so don’t be deceived by the title. The book itself is a landscape format, softback with 114 pages. On glancing at it the first thing that strikes you is that it’s very picture rich, and fabulous pictures at that. The chapter headings are not what you might expect either, and are refreshingly all about images.
After a brief introduction, the three main sections of the book are Light & Exposure, Capture and Perspective. In the first section, Chris deals with shooting in different lighting conditions, using exposure to control the feel of the image. He also goes on to look at movement, both using blur as a creative aesthetic, and frozen motion. The section concludes by looking at how to create or remove a sense of place, to provide context or create abstract images of nature, simply by controlling exposure.
All these points are illustrated with images while text is kept to a minimum. For the equipment geeks amongst you, each shot is accompanied by the relevant equipment, metering and exposure information. This is a good guide when you’re starting out and can point you in the right direction if you want to reproduce a similar shot, but unless you’re there with Chris in the same lighting conditions when each shot was taken, it’s largely useful backround detail.
The section on Capture, though, is the most intriguing. This is the bit that every “safari holiday” shooter misses, and consequently ends up with mostly pretty ordinary wildlife shots. As Chris so eloquently illustrates with his images, wildlife photography is more about understanding animal behaviour than taking the picture. The latter simply follows on from knowing how and when an animal, or group of animals, will react or interact with their surrounding environment and any other species which enter it.
Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is that it graphically illustrates the difference between high quality wildlife photography and the trophy hunting, tick-a-species-off-a-list type of wildlife photography. The striking thing about Chris’s images is that they communicate with the viewer. They are intimate, capturing not just moments but also personality and emotional responses to threat or comfort. In a flippant way, although it’s not meant to be so, you could add a thought bubble to most of the pictures because they have such a good sense of what the animal is doing and thinking.
The Perspective section is all about lens choice and composition, and how you can use these to determine a subject’s relationship with its environment. This choice also determines the sense of proximity and potential danger that the photographer put himself in to get the shots. The camera can be deceptive but there are almost certainly some interesting stories behind how some of these images were taken.
If there is one weakness in this book it is that the title may deter photographers who don’t shoot on Nikon gear from reading it. It shouldn’t! Whether these pictures were taken using Nikon, Canon, Minolta or any other quality lenses is irrelevant. The book is about taking great wildlife images. It’s portraiture with fur or feathers and it’s the wildlife shots we all wish we could take. Great wildlife shots don’t come easily. They require thought and understanding of the subject, technical skill and patience. In this book, Chris has provided the insight for us all to try.
Chris Coe, Founder Travel Photograher of the Year