No wasted outings: Lessons From Two Unsuccessful Wildlife Photography Days

These are two wildlife photography outings where I didn't get the footage I wanted, but they weren't wasted. I want to show you how to learn from days like this instead of getting frustrated, and I'll break down what went wrong and what you can apply to your own outings. Every outing teaches you something if you take the time to review it. The mistake isn't missing the shot, it's not extracting the lesson, and at the end of this video I'll be sharing some questions that I run through after every outing that help me learn and adjust for future outings when things don't go as planned. Now the first outing was a cold morning in a beautiful pine forest, a beautiful habitat, and it turned out that the the main challenge was my mindset rather than the conditions out in the field. My main goal for this outing was to be able to find and photograph the mixed flocks of songbirds and other birds, the forest birds, that form this time of year. It's a really interesting dynamic and I wanted to try to record that and get some footage of that for a video. Now the first lesson from this outing is just having the proper mindset, to start in the right mindset. Now I kind of initially went into this outing second guessing the location that I chose. I had been to this location before but it's been a couple of months so there's kind of this uneasy feeling of, you know, am I choosing the right location because I don't really know where the birds are going to be. So I just had that in the back of my mind and that put me into more of a reactive state rather than an observant state. So I was kind of already not in my prime to get the footage that I wanted to. So the main takeaway here is to just commit to the plan. When you create a plan in your head of where you're going to go out, when you're going to go out, stick to that plan because it just makes you so much more focused in the field when you're out there. And the second lesson for this outing is that I just put way too much pressure on myself. I'm just like everybody else. I have a limited amount of time to be out into the field and when you kind of put that much pressure that you need to get the footage when you're out there, that's all you think about out in the field. So you just have to remember and consistently remind yourself that you don't need to get portfolio level shots every single time you're out in the field. It's not going to happen and when you put that amount of pressure on yourself to perform every single time, it's just not going to happen and you're just going to get frustrated really quickly. And the third lesson that ties perfectly into this is that wildlife doesn't cooperate, right? So when you have these expectations in your head and you have this pressure in your head that you need to get this footage and that you're going to expect to find the wildlife where it is, it just becomes so unrealistic and that's not reality, right? Wildlife is going to behave how it's going to behave and you need to go in kind of being curious and observant rather than demanding to get the footage that you're looking for. And the last lesson is kind of a more of a behavioral and environmental observation that I noticed. So there was, we've had snow on the ground, the snow had become frozen, so the leaf litter was covered and this made it so that the foraging on the ground was inaccessible to the birds and that meant that the birds were pushed higher up into the forest canopy, up high up into the pines, which means that the conditions just didn't provide for the opportunity to photograph them because the birds were so high up because that's where they needed to find food. So the main takeaway here is that conditions don't just change where the wildlife are, it changes how and where they need to feed as well. Now the second outing was an afternoon outing. I was out in a hardwood forest and the main takeaways from this outing were, you know, lessons in field craft and execution. So the main lessons from this were understanding timing, approach direction, and wind direction as well. So the first one, timing matters. It's very important for wildlife. Wildlife activity windows are pretty narrow, especially this time of year, so the main takeaway is being set up in the right place at the right time and getting there ahead of when the wildlife is going to be active. It's really important. And still being set up in the right place but at the wrong time, you're still not going to get the shots that you're looking for. The second lesson from this outing was that the approach direction really matters. When I was out in the field, I approached the area from the wrong direction, so I actually came from the side of the deer, and this meant that I never was able to get ahead of them and they were very aware of my presence. So the main takeaway here is how you approach the area really does make a difference in the encounters you're going to have for the wildlife. And how you enter the area matters more than how close you get. The third lesson is wind direction is very important. When you're trying to photograph mammals, you need to make sure that you are downwind of them. When I approached, the wind changed and I was upwind of them, which meant that they knew I was there before they even saw me. So the main takeaway here is if the wind direction is wrong, the outcome has already been decided for you. You're probably not going to get the images you're looking for. And the last one, and possibly the most important point here, is that pattern recognition leads to consistency in the field for future outings. So once you start paying attention to the timing and the direction and the travel routes that the animals you're trying to photograph take, this allows you to find the wildlife more consistently. And it's these patterns that you can develop and recognize leads to predictability. And that predictability leads to more meaningful wildlife encounters for future outings. Now as promised, here are some questions that I ask myself after every outing, which really help me learn and understand the outing, even when I come home without the images that I'm looking for. And the questions are, you know, what did I control when I was out in the field? What signs did I miss? What assumptions were wrong? What would I do differently next time? And finally, what still worked even though I didn't get the images? And when you ask these questions after every outing, there's no outing that is wasted, because you can learn so much from just asking some of these questions. The goal isn't to come home successful every single time. The goal is to come home better prepared for future outings. And when you've had outings like this, you're not failing. You're learning. And when you start asking these questions after the outings, when you come home without images, you're going to learn so much faster than if you didn't. Let me know in the comments down below a lesson that you've learned after a tough session. It'll help me, it'll help other photographers who are struggling to find and get the images they're looking for out in the field. I hope you enjoyed this one. I hope it was helpful for you. If it was, give me a thumbs up, leave me a comment, and if you haven't yet, please consider subscribing. And also, this is going to be my last video before the Christmas holiday, so Merry Christmas to you, hope you have a safe and happy holiday season, and I will see you again real soon.