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Lesson Info
5. Safety
Lessons
Lesson Info
Safety
Let's get into safety. So knowing as much as you can about an animal before you're going to photograph it will prepare you for the best outcome and also determine how you're going to shoot. For example, if I am shooting a bird, or eagle, or a deer, I'm going to approach that differently than I am a lion or a bison for example. For instance, if you are out photographing bison, you'd probably learn from research that they have a tendency to charge people. And they're also massive and can just obliterate you. So you're definitely gonna make sure that you wanna keep your distance and be as respectful and calm and quiet as possible. If you were shooting a moose, moose have more recorded attacks on humans than bears and wolves combined. So with moose, you wanna be extra cautious especially if it's a mother moose and her cow. That is the most dangerous time to encounter a moose. They literally will see red and just stop you until you're dead. And you don't want that. So that's another animal ...
you'd wanna keep a good distance from. Another example could be caribou or as some of us like to call them reindeer. When I was in Svalbard, I had a guide hiking with me because you can't go anywhere outside of the city without a gun because of polar bears. So we were hiking along with this guide who had the gun and we came across a herd of caribou. And the guide informed me that if you're photographing caribou to be extremely respectful because if you see their eyes bulge, caribou are really sensitive. And if their eyes bulge their heart rates skyrocket and they become very stressed. So you should immediately back away and like let them be at peace. Or if you're photographing wolves for example, I kind of learned this lesson the hard way. I was photographing a wolf at a local sanctuary. And apparently if you kneel or crouch down and that's what I was doing. I was like, "Oh I want a better angle, I'm gonna get low and crouch down." That is actually a signal of aggression to wolves. And I made that mistake and the wolf charged me and I like flew back in fear, like a fear reaction. And I felt horrible because obviously I really upset the wolf with getting in that position. So knowing beforehand, never again will I ever kneel or crouch before a wolf and especially not in the wild 'cause I would've been dead. So yeah, that's some tips with certain species of animals that I've encountered. I can't stress enough that it's important that if you can have a guide with you. Someone who has really mastered that animal and usually they've spent years observing that animal's behavior and how they react to things. And they'll probably most likely will know it better than you will in your first instance with that animal. Wild animals deserve to be left wild. When we're photographing wildlife, we want to approach it as we are visitors entering into their space. You want to kind of have the mindset that you are visiting someone else's home. For example, I would not go into someone's house and start screaming or just leave my trash everywhere. Or poop in the middle of their kitchen and leave the toilet paper everywhere. And that kind of same thought goes into how we should treat the environment that we're in. We should definitely do our best to not leave a trace and leave the animals home the way we found it. We absolutely do not want to disturb the wildlife in any way or disrupt their environment. For example, walking up upon a bird's nest and then the bird freaks out and doesn't wanna return to that nest and abandons its babies. That happens so commonly with people trying to get into wildlife photography out. So outdoors, I always recommend that you should silence your phone and speak in a whisper and just really treat it as a special moment that should be respected. Another thing that it's really important to think about while photographing wildlife is in addition to the animal safety is your own. You definitely wanna make sure you're not gonna hurt yourself and put yourself in any kind of dangerous situation. In addition to that, I think you should always be mindful if there are other photographers in the area around you. My kind of motto with this is don't be a dick, be self-aware, don't get another people's shots, especially if they've been waiting a long moment to take that shot. So just be respectful to every everything involved. Okay, so I do and I don't want to share this story. This is probably the biggest mistake I have made in my career. And it's kind of still hard for me to talk about, mainly because for me at the time it was so painful, but also because it just sounds kind of ridiculous. But anyway, so a major rule in wildlife photography is obviously to never feed or pet wildlife. Well, I learned this lesson in the hard way. So this story takes place long before I was even into wildlife photography. At the time I was super into just hiking and landscapes. And I went to this popular trail in Washington, in a state park. And it's kind of known for, you can go there, you can hike. And then if you just hold up your hands, birds will fly and land in your hand. And that's a cool experience. So, but obviously the birds land in your hand because they've been conditioned. Because people go there and have food in their hands. I think it's even gotten kind of crazy where people go and hold up French fries and the birds land in their hand. So I went and I was like, "Oh I want the bird to land in my hand." So they landed in my hand and I'm sure you guys have seen it a ton of times, there's that cliche shot on Instagram of the the photo of the bird landing in your hand. And it is a magical experience. You feel like a Disney character where the birds are just flocking to you. So I post that shot and there was crazy backlash. I attracted a bunch of trolls. People were very upset. I quickly learned my lesson that you absolutely should not do that. I took the photo down, I apologized. I think the thing for me that was hardest was, I wanted to be educated on the topic. I kept asking these people like, can you explain to me why this is so upsetting, what I did wrong. And no one would talk to me. And that kind of made me become a huge advocate for online bullying or against online bullying. But anyway, I did the research myself, found out how much of a big mistake it was. I felt horrible. And basically that actually it was a huge negative that ended up becoming a huge positive. At first I kind of spiraled into this depression that lasted about a year. I lost a lot and I don't even want to go into that because that's a whole other long story but the consequences were huge. And yeah, so I used to be kind of one of those like naive people where I would literally go out and hang out with anyone that sent me a DM and wanted to hang out. And after that, my trust levels were out the window. I put up all these walls. I never wanted to meet anyone again. I wanted to shoot completely on my own. I didn't want to interact with any other photographers ever again. And so that year was really hard. But during that time, it actually propelled me into a lot of research of how to approach wildlife, how to photograph wildlife. So that kind of propelled me into wanting to learn all about wildlife photography on conservation and protecting these animals and knowing how to do things the right way. And now coincidentally, that's now become my career. So it's a hard thing for me to talk about, but it's cool because it's completely flipped and now that's become the most important thing to me. So I'm sharing this in hopes that you never make this mistake. And through me talking about this, you already know going into it. You're one step ahead of me. So I hope from sharing that story that you guys won't make the same mistake I did. But that we can also have grace on each other and that we all make mistakes. And all we can do is learn from those mistakes, and then use it to empower us to do better in the future.
Ratings and Reviews
Sarah Mackey
Brilliant and inspiring workshop This workshop was absolutely fantastic. I feel so lucky to have gotten an inside look at Charly's process and how she's developed her style. The videos following her on the photoshoot in Alaska are absolutely breathtaking, they gave me chills. The workshop was filled with so many great tips on how to be a mindful wildlife photographer as well, which is really important for our planet. After having finished this workshop, I definitely feel inspired.