These
pictures were taken during my first experience photographing wildlife. What I mean by wildlife photography is photographing wild animals in the nature with their natural poses. I have been very interested in the animal world ever since I was little. At that
time, my interest in animals was expressed through keeping some pets and
collecting wildlife videos such as the ones from National Geographic, BBC,
Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, and others. In college, I got to know about photography because it was part of the prerequisite courses for my
journalistic communication major. With photography, I was able to express my
interest in animals through the photos.
I had
only photographed animals at the zoo and pets (my own pets and my friends’
pets), so people often call it “Animal Photography” instead of “Wildlife Photography”. After approximately three years, I finally got the chance to photograph
wild animals in the nature, doing the real “Wildlife Photography”.
Actually the pictures I captured were not in the real wild nature where I would walk through the wilderness in the jungle.
I just went to an unspoiled
countryside where the bird habitat was still awake (still better than nothing!).
If I ask myself how my first experience in wildlife photography was, the answer is: difficult. Why difficult? Because the birds were very sensitive, so I could not get close to them. It was the reason why I used a long lens with vocal length at least 500mm, of which was a cheap third party lens that I got after saving money for a long time hehehe.. Poor me! Usually when photographing serious wildlife, the equipment is very expensive, and I cannot afford to buy them (yet!). The second difficulty is I have to be patient waiting to be able to capture the right moment. This was only for tryout hunting, imagine the real wildlife hunting!
After capturing the wildlife pictures for the first time, I felt happy that finally I got the opportunity to go even though the results were not very satisfying. Also as a bonus, my body was sore and I felt very tired, perhaps due to standing with my head tilted up for a long time, waiting and observing the birds. Obviously, photographing wildlife requires good physical strength as one of the main abilities in addition to having good photography skills. Again, this was photographing in the countryside, imagine in the jungle hahaha!
After I finished taking photographs, I started thinking how a National Geographic and wildlife BBC photographers, Animal Planet, and Discovery Channel would photograph or document the activity of the wildlife in their habitats impressively. Until today I am still amazed by the works of world class wildlife photographers and videographers. I still cannot imagine how a professional wildlife photographer could capture an extraordinary moment like when a cheetah is hunting a group of wilthebes in the Serengeti, or a group of lemur in Madagaskar. I have also seen videos of silver-back gorilla or uncommon animals like Aye Aye that live in the jungle and still untouched by humans. Moreover, they were able to capture the life of a polar bear that lives on frozen sea in the North Pole. All of those still amaze me to no end and leave me wondering how long it took them to capture the photos or videos and what kind of equipment was used.
I came to know the places in the world
where there are natural wildlife habitats as a result of watching many of the
videos. I also remember Indonesia was one of those places. Indonesia’s wildlife
has been quite well known around the world. There are world class wildlife
photographers that I know such as Tim Laman, Burrad-Lucas brothers, Rycil Ruoso, David
Attenborough, Mattias Clume, including the famous one like Alain Compost who
went to Indonesia to document the exotic animals. Indonesia is very rich in biodiversity, and one of them is, of course, the animals.
There are some endemic species such as Orangutans,
Komodo dragons, The Birds of Paradise in
Papua, and Sulawesi Black Ape. I still have yet seen Indonesia’s
own photographers do it! As far as I know, only Riza Marlon or his nickname
“Bang Caca” who is consistent in photographing Indonesia’s wildlife and
successfully inspired aspiring young Indonesian wildlife photographers like me.
I suddenly remember a
few months ago, in March 2012, I got the opportunity to participate in a wild
& nature workshop. I had a discussion with Reynold Sumayku who is the photo editor of National Geographic Indonesia. He was very patient answering my innocent
questions. To make long story short, I ended up becoming more confused and
burdened with my dream to become a wildlife photographer. However, the lesson I
learned from Reynold was when photographing wildlife, one has to be honest,
ethical, and capable of taking the responsibility of his work. He needs to be
able to explain how the photo is made, for what purpose, and what to do to
minimize any sorts of disturbance that the animal might feel when being
photographed. I would like to thank Reynold for his advice!
So, this is just my
little story about my experience being a wildlife photographer. I hope I will
get to go again! Anyone wants to take me?
Useful
link for you, friends:
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