On The Art Of Patience, And Appreciating Imperfection

Photography is NOT an art of instant satisfaction, especially when nature and its notoriously unreliable elements are involved.

Now try selling that to the thousands of tourists stumbling around our world's vulnerable natural places - searching for an especially endangered animal to snap an I-phone selfie with.

Stunning shots of fiery sunrises and up-close animals require a blend of timing, luck, and skill to achieve. This is especially true when it comes to photographing wild animals.

Alas, we run into our problem today. Technology and instant-gratification mean that patience is waning, and when we see an animal - we NEED to get closer to take a picture of it!

Behind every good photograph, there are a million failed attempts. Any photographer worth their weight will tell you the same. There's no way around it. When you move closer to wild animals, they take notice and avoid you - which makes for a bad shot in the end.

Maybe people are afraid of the truth? To photograph a wild animal, you need to spend time in the wild. You need an appreciation of nature that makes the whole experience worthwhile. Because even if you don't come away with the shot you wanted, at least you were able to spend a few hours outside!

So cheers to the imperfect photos and the good times. Here are some animals that I've missed, but am hoping to come across again in the future:

We ran into this little bird flying around a lake in Southern Maine. Small, agile birds like this are some of the most notoriously difficult to photograph because they just never sit still. This was the best shot that I got, when the little guy finally decided to land on a branch close-enough above me.

This whale breached right in front of me while I was surfing. I managed to run out of the water and tell my partner to grab the camera. The humpback breached a couple more times, putting on a show for everyone on the beach. I wasn't prepared with a zoom lens solid enough to capture the whale, but this one ain't too bad either.

This is a Kingfisher, a super cool bird that has a really long beak. We were canoeing around a lake in Maine when this one flew out along the tree line. We followed it for a while from tree to tree, but were never able to get close enough.

Loons are very flighty, and it's easy to disturb them if you get too close. So we watched this one from afar, and I managed to get this pretty cool shot! It's not perfect, but it'll do