In photography, you create shots by moving your camera to a physical position in space and time. This is clear. But what is not so obvious is that very slight changes in space and time can drastically alter a composition. As a wildlife photographer, I know it’s tempting to take pictures immediately when an animal appears, but this often results in something not being right with the composition. It’s better to take a more thoughtful approach and make some small adjustments before taking the photo. In that spirit, I want to show you five before and after photos, with the only differences being small changes in area.
Example 1: Gambel’s quail
Three years ago in Arizona, I was interested in photographing quail. Usually they fly away very quickly, but I found one walking, and he didn’t seem too scared:
In this initial take there is some very bright background blur on the left, and the quail is facing slightly away from me. I feel like the shot is also too high. However, the ground does look interesting, and there’s something reddish-green in the distance that looks like it might provide a more uniform background.
What happened when I took a few steps to the left and lay down on the ground? I got a completely different shot:
Now Gambel’s quail is facing the camera for a classic profile shot, there’s no longer that bright stuff in the background, and the ground is better defined. I’m very happy with this second shot and didn’t have to make any major adjustments to get there.
Example 2: Bare-faced Ibis
Recently, I found a Bare-faced Ibis:
I love ibises. They have very nice bills and are quite photogenic. I think shots like this can often be good and show the ibis’ habitat. But what if you feel that the foreground is a bit too bumpy? One option is to lower your camera and shoot through the grass. See what happens when I move a little and lower the lens about ten centimeters:
Now, the foreground is completely destroyed. It’s not because I changed my aperture; In both cases it was maxed out at f/5.6. Rather, the lower position of the camera for the second photo resulted in more blurring of the nearby grass, making the bottom half of the photo much smoother. This technique won’t necessarily make every photo better, and you may still prefer the previous image, but it can be a good technique to use! And it shows how such a small change in camera position leads to very different shots.
Example 3: Common Gallinule
In Brazil it is common for Common Gallinules to roam the grasses next to lakes:
They are not afraid of people and hence it is easy to photograph them. But I think the foreground in the image above is not very pleasant. By taking a step forward and placing the lens much closer to the ground, I was able to simplify the distractions and focus more on the common gallinule:
Now the foreground has been made more blurred, and the subject more isolated. The green background had also turned pink due to some bare, red ground in the background. As with previous photos of the Bare-faced Ibis, I only lowered the camera about 10 cm between these two typical gallinule photos.
Example 4: Yellow-eyed Junco
I lived in Ottawa for several years, and one of the most common birds there was the Dark-eyed Junco. I was especially excited to see the Yellow-eyed Junco when I visited Arizona! When I first looked at it up close it looked something like this:
I was actually on a hill when I took the photo, and I’m looking down here. There are all kinds of things in the way. But I quietly moved away from Junko and went down a few steps. I waited again, and luckily Junko came hopping around! I lowered the camera again (perhaps you are considering a subject) so low that I was lying down. By changing my position this way and waiting, I got a completely different and less cluttered view:
Doesn’t this make Junko look a little better? Once again, it didn’t take much to change the position of my camera to get a clear image. This required consideration and recognition that there was room for improvement in the original shot.
Example 5: Masked Water-Tyrant
I want to show one last example that doesn’t look too different at first, but I really like one and not the other. Two weeks ago, I saw a masked water tyrant:
When I looked through the viewfinder and took this shot, my first thought was, “The head is too close to the bright part of the plant, out of focus.” I also noticed a large, dark area in the top-right part of the photo that was distracting – and conversely, an interesting brown area in the bottom-right that I wanted to include more of. So, I moved the camera about two inches to the left to get this:
This is not a big difference. But the lack of black void at the top of the photo creates a very different feeling for me. And, the red stuff on the left adds a nice balance to the photo, as well as a contrast between the blue and green tones in the rest of the photo. The bird’s posture is also more dynamic to me, and it stands more cleanly on the tip of the plant.
conclusion
I hope I’ve shown you how important it is to make minor adjustments to your structure in the field. Small adjustments can make big changes to your photos – changes that go far beyond what can be made through post-processing.
Of course, you won’t always be able to make every adjustment you want. Believe me, I know; It took me a long time to get even slightly good at making these types of adjustments and to understand which adjustments would even be beneficial at first. I am very slow in the field and often get distracted.
Yet, over time I realized that making slight adjustments – excluding one thing and incorporating another – can be one of the most rewarding parts of photography. So, my suggestion is that the next time you see something worth photographing, don’t just take a photo and move on. Instead, keep a careful eye on how different parts of the photo change as you make minor adjustments. I think you’ll find the results worthwhile!
