Bill Silliker, Jr.

The Camera Hunter

Time on Target Makes For Better Camera Hunting

     "F8 and be there" said it all for photographer Robert Capa when he answered the question about how he consistently got great pictures of some major wars of the 20th century.  What Capa didn't say was that being there often takes a lot of planning and commonly costs a lot of dues paying. 

     While camera hunting in Maine is a lot less hazardous than covering a war on film, you still need to plan and to pay some dues to succeed.  The best planning is done well in advance.  Don't the better deer hunters scout the areas that they hunt all year?  The camera hunter should plan ahead as well. 

How To Plan Your Camera Hunting

     So how do you plan for camera hunting?  First figure out what subjects interest you the most.  Your plan will next depend on your priorities for time in the seasons ahead.  Most importantly, it will also depend upon how much you know about the species you've decided to target this year. 

     It's important to know something about the species you hope to photograph for several reasons.  Not the least of those is so that you won't interfere unduly in the lives of your intended subjects.  While there are varied opinions about what constitutes harassment of wildlife, you'll obviously get the best opportunities to photograph critters that hang around.  And if you ever try to sell your work, you'll soon learn that most pictures of the east end of an animal headed west do not excite photo-editors.

     Another reason to know something about your intended subjects is so that you will target the right places.  Look at Capa's words again.  To maximize the results from the time you spend "there", you need to ask: where?  You need to plan when to be where to get the best images.

     A funny thing happens once you really start to plan the where and the when of what you want to photograph this year.  You find that the days of mud season pass by very quickly.

Too Many Choices For The Maine Camera Hunter

     Maine offers so many choices for the camera hunter that my problem is often to plan what to pass up on for the year.  Seriously.  We've got moose and deer, black bears and bobcats, foxes and coyotes, bald eagles and osprey, shorebirds and seabirds, nesting loons and songbirds, seals and whales and a variety of waterfowl - and that's just for starters.  Sure, you can try to go after it all, but you'll soon discover that you need to spend time on point paying some dues to bring back better images of any given species that you target.  There simply aren't enough days to do it!    

     By example, let's say that part of your plan this year is to photograph infant moose.  You know, or you learn from your research, that moose are born from late May into early June.  You also know that mother moose are defenders and will not tolerate a close approach from a human, especially in the deep woods.  So you determine that your best chance to photograph a moose calf without harassing your subjects or getting yourself in trouble is from across a pond in moose country from mid June on when their mothers bring them out while they feed at ponds. Now you can plan to be there.

     But say that you want to target whitetail fawns at the same time.  You can't do it.  Whitetails are hiders.  Deer mothers don't bring their babies out when they go to a moose pond to feed along the edge or to drink.  So you have to look some place else - not to mention need a lot of luck - to find infant fawns.  The secret: target places more suitable for deer.

     Or say you're also targeting black bears.  Maine's black bears number around 20,000.  That's a lot of bears!  They slip through the same woods as the moose, but they don't display themselves often.  They're hardly likely to pose at a moose pond that's got people hanging around it.  Show of hands: how many of you see bear often at moose ponds in June?  If you do regularly, drop me a note and let's go camera hunting.

     That's not to say that you might not spot a bear at a moose pond.  In fact, one of my greatest hopes is to be there when a black bear tries to take down a moose calf.  Can you imagine the photographs you could make?  But you've got a better chance if you plan to camera hunt black bears at places where June's green-up vegetation attracts them and not folks moose watching or fishing.

     You just have to make choices as you plan.  And then stick to your plan until you get what you need unless an unexpected opportunity comes along.  All you have to do is to "be there".

     Maybe that's what Robert Capa meant?

     Catch yours in the good light.

Bill Silliker, Jr. teaches wildlife & nature photography for L.L. Bean's Outdoor Discovery Schools and has done the photography for 5 books, several of which he also wrote. He is editor of the website www.wildlifewatcher.com as well as for his own website at www.camerahunter.com

© Copyright 2000 Bill Silliker, Jr. all rights reserved.