How Do I Become a Wildlife Photographer?

Video Transcript

"My name is Anthony Maddaloni and I am going to be talking about how to become a wildlife photographer. Now a wildlife photographer is a very interesting way to make a living as a photographer because it is really kind of cool. You are out in the wild and you are photographing animals so obviously one of the first things you want to do is a) really enjoy being out in the wild which means maybe getting really cold, maybe getting really hot and having a lot of patience. I've done a little bit of wildlife photography and it is really fun but it also requires a lot of waiting, waiting for the right moment. So that is something you want to ask yourself, do I have a lot of patience, there is not a lot of action. There can be but it's a lot of waiting around for the animal. The other thing you want to ask and you want to start in how to become a wildlife photographer is do I have the right equipment? You are going to need a lens that is pretty long, a pretty big telephoto lens, I would say a minimum of 300 mm lens probably even higher than that. You are also going to want a pretty quiet camera. You don't want a camera that makes a lot of noise. That is one thing that I noticed when I was doing it is how far animals hear from pretty far distance. Also you want to look at what publications are looking for pictures of wildlife. That is one thing that I think is pretty cool. There is all sorts of books, calendars. If you pick out one form of wildlife if you just want to do let's say coyotes, you could probably make a whole book of just say coyotes in upstate New York for instance. It might be kind of interesting and there also might be publications looking for shots like that. So that's one way you can get your foot in the door on how to become a wildlife photographer."