When I first thought about doing wildlife photography I was a bit stuck for inspiration. I was in the middle of the city with no wildlife in sight, unless you counted the people milling all around me, and I wasn’t due up for another long vacation for at least a few months yet. So obviously wildlife photography in the wild was out, but someone very helpfully pointed me in the direction that I’m about to point you in now. What about the wildlife at the zoos? There was more or less all the wildlife that I could want just sitting there bored in their cages watching people make funny faces at them. (Sounds a bit like what a baby has to go through doesn’t it?)

But I still had to wait for the weekend for that and I was chafing at the bit to get into my stride in wildlife photography, when the second suggestion struck me as being the answer to all my troubles. Wildlife photography from home! I could get started immediately I went home, and if nothing else I could always go after the dog. Now that we’ve sorted out where you can take your wildlife shots, maybe we should now think about what kind of wildlife photography you were thinking of doing.

This is a crucial step in your wildlife photography but not something that you might want to look into just yet. You might still want to get your hands into everything to decide exactly what it is about wildlife photography that you like. Is it the thought of capturing on film the big cats like lions and tigers? Or maybe you want to photograph elephants. What about hippos, or zebras or even rhinos?

And if you don’t like the idea of going big, then do you like the idea of going small? Have you thought about birds and insects? What about the much maligned rodent varieties? As you can see there are many different types of wildlife photography options available to you and you just have to reach out and take it.

In the wild is where you get all the action, all the heart pounding terror of being in the wild along with the animals, knowing that you’re in their home court and that your advantage depends entirely on the guide who’s leading you around. This then is what many of the greatest wildlife photographers yearn to do and where they end up anyway. Whether the reality meets their expectation of the dream is another matter entirely.

They’re there, in the wild, with the ability to get up close and personal with their wildlife subjects. Nothing at all like the zoo back home, but then again what did you expect right? However, it’s also true that wildlife shots, are natural, don’t only have to be shots of the big game animals. Wildlife shots can be of anything that is considered wild. Take my dog for instance. I consider the shots that I took of him to be wildlife purely for the reason that there isn’t a tame bone in his body. He bounces and bounds around like nobody’s business and defends his territory with deep menacing growls. The fact that he wouldn’t hurt a fly is another matter entirely.

So although in-the-wild wildlife shots are great and look amazing, I would take whatever I can get, at least in the beginning. In the wild is preferably where you might like to take your wildlife photographs, but sometimes you just don’t have the choice or the ability to do that. In that case I would recommend that you start your sojourn into wildlife photography at the zoo. Going to the zoo will offer you the opportunity to catch some of the fiercest wildlife, if not in their habitats, then at their best and their worst. It’s a bit like catching a movie star in their baggy sweat pants with absolutely no makeup on them! It’s fascinating and you won’t necessarily get the chance for such candid shots if you were in their natural habitat.