Sure! I got started about 13 years ago in my junior year of high school. My first rolls of film (yes, actual film) were shot at the San Antonio Zoo in Texas using a run of the mill disposable camera. I saw all of these amazing things at the zoo through the viewfinder of the camera, and I thought I got a bunch of awesome pictures, so I was really excited to get the film back from the store. Upon getting it, however, I was devastated to find that all the great things I’d seen had translated to some quite frankly awful photos. Images were over/underexposed, animals were little tiny specs in the shot, despite how close they looked in-person, and nothing was really even remotely worth keeping.
I was discouraged to the point that I almost gave up on photography altogether. My mom encouraged me though, giving me a hand-me-down an old Ricoh film SLR that had belonged to my grandmother, and told me to stick with it. I did, and bit-by-bit my pictures improved over time. One of my first favorite shots 
still has a special place in my heart today, because between taking the shot and having the film developed, I broke my leg playing baseball. I didn’t actually see the picture until my mom brought it in while I was lying on my back in a hospital bed waiting for surgery. It kind of helped put a silver lining on a bad few days for me, and so it’s stuck with me over the years.
Many photographers choose their favorite subject matter and decide to photograph more in that category than others. What led you to making the decision to focus on Wild Animals?
It’s kind of a nesting set of interests for me: Nature, wildlife, mammals, big cats, and lions in particular, have been a passion for me for as long as I can remember. If I had to guess, I’d say it even started before that, because I have baby pictures of me lying in a crib with a little stuffed lion next to me. Architecture just doesn’t resonate with me. Food and commercial photography don’t resonate with me. Some of the most captivating photos I’ve seen are of people (chief among them, Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange and Afghan Girl by Steve McCurry), but overall, people just don’t resonate with me like nature and animals do.
Wild animals are easy to identify with, especially the big charismatic animals like the big cats, but at the same time, they have a kind of enigmatic, wild energy about them that I find quite captivating. Trying to capture that essence in a photo is both extremely challenging and extremely rewarding. Over some of the best photographers in other fields, I’ll take Nick Nichols, Joel Sartore, Mitsuaki Iwago, Jim Brandenburg, Anup Shah, Steve Winter, and the like any day of the week.
Big cats are pretty singular to me in the animal kingdom – there are other wonderful animals, but none of them are quite as huge, powerful, beautiful, majestic, graceful, etc., etc., as the big cats. I’ve always wanted to get as up close and personal with these animals as possible (while still recognizing that having anything short of glass, fencing, moats, etc. between us would be insane), and I think that’s reflected in my photos. I like portraits, and I like personality. Some of the most rewarding photos I’ve taken have been these sort of intimate looks at these animals, shots that show more than just “hey that’s a pretty animal.” Because yeah, they’re pretty. Anyone can get a pretty shot of a pretty animal in this day and age. What sets a photo apart is personality and spirit. Something that says who this animal is.
You manage to capture these magnificent creatures in such intimate moments, how long do you typically spend watching and waiting for the perfect shot?
It’s all about patience, for sure. I’ve had cases where I’ve come up to exhibits and within seconds I’m getting the shot I’m after, but far more often, I’ve had times where I’ve waited 15, 20, 30, 40 minutes for a shot. You never know when an animal is going to wake up from a nap and strike that perfect pose for two seconds before going back to sleep, so you have to be patient, and you have to be ready.
What that means is a couple of things: 1) You don’t taunt animals in a zoo. You don’t throw rocks, tap on glass, whistle, yell, roar, or anything like that to get their attention. The animal will do what it will do, when it wants to do it, and your job as a photographer is to be there if/when it does what you want it to do. 2) You have to go into a situation knowing the shot you’re after, anticipating what the animal is going to do before it does it, and being ready take multiple potential shots on the fly. You never quite know what opportunities are going to present themselves, even in an environment as controlled as a zoo, so you just have to be ready. This is complicated when you factor in things like poor exhibit conditions, changing lighting conditions, different compositions, distracting background, crowds of people crawling all over you and your equipment, and so on, but it’s something you get better at the more you do it.
Intimate moments are one thing, another is a moment of ferocity! Many animals in zoos are not the most ferocious of animals, thus making the moments when they are that much more special. You captured this tiny beast making quite the angry face, could you tell us about the settings that you used to freeze this perfect moment in time?
It was pretty average settings, if I’m being honest. A shutter speed (1/640th sec) fast enough to stop the action reasonably at 300mm focal length, and a wide-open aperture (f/4.0) to let as much light in as possible. I try not to get much above 400 ISO just because I’m very particular about keeping noise as minimal as possible in my photos. Around 640-800 ISO, the noise gets heavy enough that it compromises the quality past the point that I feel is acceptable. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that here.
The most difficult part of this shot was trying to keep track of three different cubs in three different places doing three different things, and having the camera in the right place at the right time to get the shot. Timing really was everything here.
Capturing extreme closeups showing the smallest of details (like saliva and sandpaper tongue) is not the easiest of tasks, when having to stalk your way around an enclosure at a zoo. What kind of camera body and lens do you typically use when going out to the zoo for a shoot?
So, as I mentioned before, one of the things I love to do is get as close to the animals as I can with my photos. This has translated to a lot of head shots – portraits, profiles, and the like – and thankfully I’ve got the equipment to handle it. I shoot with two different middle-of-the-road camera bodies, a Nikon D90 and D5000, and the vast majority of my zoo shots are taken with a Nikon 300mm f/4.0 lens.Lens: www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product…For the most part, I adhere to the idea that the equipment is only as good as the photographer, but I make an exception here: The critical thing about this 300mm lens is that coupled with the focal length, the f/4.0 aperture gives a shallow enough depth of field that I can shoot through most fencing without having it show up in the final shot. It makes zoo photography so much easier (and in a lot of cases is the only reason it’s even possible!).Also, it’s not a camera or a lens, but my tripod is invaluable at the zoo, because not only does it serve to stake out some space for me to work when there would otherwise be children and adults swarming all over me, but many exhibits are fairly low light, and when you’re working with high magnification telephoto lenses, you need all the stability you can get, or else you end up with a blurry image. The difference between handheld and tripod-stabilized is enormous when you’re dealing with the fine details of fur, eyes, saliva, and tongue barbs.
Shooting through the glass of zoo enclosure can be a nightmare! The glare is simply evil and often you take a million photos and only capture maybe one salvageable shot that even then really is not as good as one would like. This little fox I see was one of those for you, but your shot was more than just salvageable, it is beautiful. I am sure you have to search far and wide for an area to be camera ready, how do go about avoiding the glare?
There are a few different methods I have for avoiding glare, all of which are pretty straightforward. First, I usually wear dark clothes and long sleeves on zoo trips so that I can block reflections with my body if possible. I’ll also I rest my lens flush to the surface of the glass if I can to prevent any reflections or glare from occurring. This doesn’t work so well if the animal isn’t directly in front of my lens, so another method is to position my lens within a hand’s width of the glass and cup my hand around the lens like a makeshift lens hood to block light from reaching the glass. This way, I can still reposition the camera to compose the image as I want. Doing this with a 9 inch, 3 pound lens can be a bit of a task though, so always the best option is to find a few square inches of glass with no glare, or just to avoid shooting through glass altogether, as there is quite frequently some warping/distortion in glass that can ruin otherwise amazing photos. Fencing is much, much better overall, assuming you have the equipment to shoot through it.
The glass of exhibits are annoying enough but then you couple it with the necessary items to make them feel comfortable in their environment and you are left with very few spots to catch them, being the cute little animals they are. Then add the fact that they are fast little creatures, it can really be off putting for a newbe. Could you give them some encouragement about how you have come to overcome all of these glaring disadvantages?
I
think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. When you factor in glass glare/distorion, sunlit/shaded fencing, other zoo visitors, animal location within the exhibit, distracting objects in the background/foreground, interesting compositions, time of day, your read of where you think the animal might go next, etc., etc., you frequently have very little choice *where* you place your camera. As an example, I’d offer up my photos of the tigers at the Sacramento Zoo. Exceedingly dark exhibit with two layers of fencing, a densely packed thicket of bamboo stalks and a number of trees between me and the animals. A lot of the time, I have to actively search for a spot where I can even photograph the animals unobstructed. When I do find a spot, it is frequently no more than a couple square inches of space, such that I have no choice where I point the camera. 
I’ve got one look at the animal, so my job is to wait for an interesting photo to present itself.
That’s 50% of the job right there: patience. Patience, patience, patience. When you get the patience down, you’re halfway home. Beyond that, it’s all practice. You have to try things out, figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. You’re going to take bad photos, and you’re going to take a lot of them. The old adage for me back when I began was “if you take an entire roll of film and get one picture worth keeping on it, then you’re doing fine.” Film’s not as much of a thing anymore, but the saying stands true: if you get a few keepers out of a trip to the zoo, then you did well. It can be frustrating at times, but when you pull a really top notch shot out of a difficult situation, it makes *everything* worth it.
Are there any special software programs you use in post to help clarify your shots?
I use Adobe Camera Raw and Adobe Photoshop to edit my photos. Most of the corrections I make are to approximate what I saw through the camera lens. I try to make it a point to go for realism and not overedit my photos, because I really feel these animals are amazing and beautiful enough to stand on their own. They don’t need glowing “flashlight” eyes, unnatural brightness gradients, and crazy saturated colors, and in fact, a lot of the time I find those shots distracting to the point that I can’t enjoy them. Big cats do not provide their own light source, so why should their eyes be glowing like the surface of the sun in your photo?
In closing please tell us seasoned and new comers to Wild Animal photography a bit of advise and useful tips you have acquired.
There’s a lot of advice I could give, but most of it falls under the umbrella of “Practice, Patience, and Preparedness.”
It’s what I’ve been saying since the start: Animal photography, wild or captive, is about patience. In the wild, photographers may go weeks in search of the exact shot they want, sitting in blinds for hours and hours every day. In zoos, you probably won’t go weeks, but you may have to wait a good 20-30 minutes before you get a chance at the photo you want. If you just walk up, take a shot, and leave, or you walk up, see the animal is sleeping, and leave, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Good things come to those who wait.
Likewise, you need to be on your toes and ready for your shot when it does present itself. You may only get a few seconds to focus, compose your image, get your exposure, and press the shutter release, so you have to be ready for anything. It’s all timing. This is what separates a good shot from a great shot – it’s that split second between an animal staring dully ahead and an animal looking up and having its eyes light up from the catch light in the sky. It’s the difference between a lion cub staring at the camera and a lion cub looking at the camera with an adorably fierce little growl on his face. It’s the difference between photographing two lions fighting with their paws and claws out and photographing two lions just kinda standing close to each other. Split second timing elevates photos to the next level, and the best way to get your timing right is to be prepared.
A bunch of other things can help with this though. A big one is to work the subject so that you can find the best spot to shoot from. This means both moving left to right and particularly with wildlife photography, moving up and down. Most animals are shorter than humans, so if you just stand there and take a shot, you’re both 1) shooting from the same boring angle as 99% of the population, producing the same boring shots that they take, and 2) shooting down at the animal – not a very flattering, personable angle. Get down on their eye level, get up close and personal, make the shot yours.
Other photographic rules of thumb: 1) Keep an eye on the background to prevent anything distracting from ruining your picture. We’ve all seen pictures of people with streetlights or trees seemingly sprouting out of the top of their head. Avoid that with your work, because in my experience it always happens on what would otherwise be one of your best shots. 2) Use the Rule of Thirds. Easy way to make your picture more appealing. Place your point of interest (*almost always the eyes* with animals) in the upper third of the image, and move the subject left or right to give the image some direction. 3) Have fun, and don’t be disappointed! It’s easy to be discouraged when you don’t get the shots you want, but that’s the whole thing with photography. You never know what you’re going to get. You win some, and you lose some, but you get better over time, and when you get a really special shot that sticks with you over the years, it feels like you won the lottery.
Very nice interview!