I’ve been a professional wildlife photographer since 2008 and for all of that time I’ve been trying to take pictures that will invoke an emotional response with people. In my experience, there is nothing that does that quite as well as baby animals. It’s probably got a lot to do with the cute factor.

I’ve collected here some of the baby animals and young wildlife photos that I’ve taken over the years. Each one of them triggers a fond memory and takes me back to where and when I took that photo. Whilst I’ve described a little about how to approach taking these shots below, this is perhaps less of a Tips blog post than a celebration of young wildlife. Having said that, there are one are two things that are worth noting about taking photographs of juveniles and baby animals and birds and it would be broadly covered under the heading of creating a disturbance to the animal at its most vulnerable. More of that in a minute.

It’s so rewarding to photograph and film young animals: they tend to be more playful and more cute than their parents. It’s often just a case of pointing your camera and waiting for them to do something funny or cute. All the usual rules of wildlife photography composition and camera settings apply just in the way that they would for adults, but one thing that I think often sets young animals apart from adults is that they are often really good for interactive shots because of that playfulness. Watching lion cubs or young elephants play-fighting is an absolute joy. And to photograph them doing that: even better.

One useful thing to note is that because young animals are usually much smaller than their parents, it’s worth making that connection in the photograph. So for example you might want to put a cute baby with its parent to show the different sizes and parental love and protection, rather than only taking photographs of the young animal by itself. Putting a parent in the frame also underlines how small the babies can be.

Lastly, the prickly business of whether you should be taking the photo in the first place. This is particularly important to consider where the species is threatened or endangered. For these animals and birds, they need the utmost protection when at their most vulnerable, which is usually when they are very young and still at the nest / den etc. As such, they are often protected by laws and rules that stipulate when they can and can’t be approached – including to be photographed.

An example of this would be birds in the UK covered under Schedule 1 licenses: you would need one of these licenses to get anywhere near these creatures at their nest. The BTO issues licenses on behalf of Natural England. They also have a list that tells you which birds are protected and in which territories. These licenses are often called disturbance licenses because you are intentionally creating a disturbance at this species’ most vulnerable point by approaching them. Obviously, photographing the animals at this sensitive time is a disturbance too, particularly if you get close, as we often want to in photography for that special shot.

With endangered species, this is not only a risk for their survival (nest abandonment, behavioural change, increased risk of predation, etc.), but it is illegal and you could be prosecuted. So, the long and the short of it is that you need to know which species are vulnerable and protected before you even attempt to go and photograph them. Occasionally you may be allowed to photograph a sensitive species for a specific purpose if in the long run it does the conservation of that species some good.

For example, several years ago I did a project on red kites, which are protected birds. I was attached to the RSPB who were doing a project in our local area and was asked to take photographs at and near the nest sites of some of the kites. This could only be done under the supervision of the local RSPB team who had a Schedule 1 disturbance license. I was then allowed to photograph the nest site and young birds as long as I made myself scarce if anybody walked nearby and never disclosed to anybody where the nest was. I also ended up taking a photograph of a young kite that had fallen out of its nest and was being kept in an undisclosed location before being later released.

Similarly when photographing lion cubs or any other mammals in Africa, as I often do when taking people on photography safaris, I and all of the clients I take under my wing must always pay attention to what our guides tell us is possible. Sometimes they will say we must move away from an animal to avoid distress. This must be the baseline for all wildlife viewing, never mind photography. And it is particularly important where young animals are concerned.

All this being said, if you’ve done your research and you either know the species is not threatened, or you have the permission of a body who can grant you access, then carry on.

You may at this point be thinking, well there are plenty of garden birds or woodland animals that are not threatened that would be fair game to photograph when young. Just bear in mind that all animals when very young are vulnerable, even if the species itself is not protected. Always exercise caution and don’t get too close. Use your common sense: you can usually tell when wildlife feels under threat.

I tend to think of wildlife portraits as finding the essence of an animal. Just like human portraits, taking animal portraits follows a lot of the same rules with a few major differences. Whilst you’ll have the advantage of not having to worry about hair styling, wardrobe and makeup, you’ll spend a lot of time waiting for just the right moment to actually take a shot. Never work with animals or children they say. And they’d be right: children can be extremely unpredictable and uncooperative. Not all the time of course. But animals – in particular wildlife – well that’s even worse: you have very little chance to direct the shot. And they might not even turn up. If that lion doesn’t look at you, you can’t take a full face portrait with him looking right at you. Luckily, some animals are curious to see what has just stopped in front of them, like giraffes for example. But be quick. If you’re in a safari vehicle, you should have your camera ready for the shot before you stop. The animals are most interested in you at the point you arrive. After that (if they haven’t scarpered) they’ll often lose interest and never look at you again. Often though, animals keep a constant look-out and will turn to look in different directions repeatedly on the lookout. Even predators do this, so their kills don’t get stolen. Try to catch the animal looking directly at you if possible.

Luck plays a big part. But as with anything else, it’s possible to ‘refine’ luck by shortening the odds. Do your homework and find out when the animals are likely to be around. Go with a guide, or someone who knows the animals to increase your chances. There are times when certain animals don’t do much: lions are a great example! If you turn up at midday, they’ll be asleep. Find them at dawn or dusk and you’ll see them utterly transformed.

When is the best light? Usually golden hour is best, not just because it’s a lovely colour, but also because the light comes in at more of an angle and creates a more 3D effect. Or it might create back-light for extra drama. All is not lost if the light isn’t great though: often, converting to black and white and carefully processing the image can make a great image.

Ok, so let’s talk technical stuff. In order to create a powerful connection with the animal, and so that you can show something of its character, you’ll have to decide how close to get. Most portraits work best when the animal is dominant in the frame. This is also a time when the rule of thirds doesn’t so much need to be used for the placement of the whole animal, as certain strong features of that animal. Think eyes on a thirds, or a hand on crossing thirds for example. Consider this portrait of a cheetah. Two of the signature features of cheetahs are the black ‘tear’ lines down each side of the nose, and those wonderful eyes. If you photograph the cheetah so that it’s small in the scene, those features won’t have much impact. So, zoom in with a long lens and make sure the eyes in particular are sharp. You’ll notice with the gorilla above that just one sharp eye works really well too. Zero sharp eyes doesn’t work, however! Speaking of sharpness, use as fast a shutter speed as you can get away with. If there’s not much light, crank up the ISO and use a beanbag or tripod. I know visual noise is undesirable, but sometimes a little noise is acceptable and is easily removable afterwards.

Separating the animal from the background is a good way to make it stand out. Try to use a shallow depth of field: as wide as you can go with the aperture. Be aware that any long noses may be out of focus if you’re at a really wide aperture, even if the eyes are in focus. In the world of lenses, I’m afraid long, fast lenses really do make a difference – and cost a whole pile of cash. Not only will you get closer in, but the quality of the shot will be better: sharpness, background blur (bokeh), contrast and lack of aberrations. It’s often the lens that’s more important than the camera. My sweetest lens was a Nikon 300mm f/2.8 and it cost an arm and a leg. I still haven’t replaced it since moving to Sony, but the intention is there.

As for post-processing, I like to do quite a bit to make sure the image really pops from the screen. As well as the usual exposure, white balance and so on, I usually add a bit more contrast, draw down the blacks and push up the whites and sharpen a bit more than I’d normally do. Also a touch of clarity and maybe a vignette or radial exposure filter with some dodging and burning. I realise that if you don’t know what these terms mean, this all may be a bit much to hear. It’s just to explain that my style is to perform quite a few tweaks to the image afterwards. Not always, but usually. And not always lots: usually subtlety is the best.

It’s worth pulling back a little sometimes and not cropping in too much. Whereas the cheetah’s face warranted a long lens and some cropping in post, the baboon above looked like it needed to a bit more space. It’s a portrait in its environment. The photo is still simple enough and the animal is the main subject, but there’s a little of its environment included, which I think enhanced the portrait.

Back-light is, as you might expect, where the light on the subject is predominantly from behind. What this does is produce a dramatic effect, outlining the subject in rim light. All the more stunning if that light is warm in colour and there is some detail in the subject, like fur or feathers to make an interesting outline, or where the light can shine through those feathers or fur.

Camera exposure is important, as you’ll have to capture a wide dynamic range. Shooting in raw will give you the best quality to work with, as you may have to brighten the foreground shadows in post production whilst keeping the highlights where they are. Typically you’ll expose for the bright back-light and make sure those bright parts are on the right hand side of your histogram. Cameras vary greatly in their dynamic range capabilities and the smaller the dynamic range, the less able the camera is to record everything from dark to bright and all in between. The reason I say that you should expose for the highlights is that there’s more data stored in those highlights. Even if the photograph looks a little too bright, you can darken the image later and retain more dynamic range than if you shot with a lower exposure. Just make sure you don’t blow the highlights out so that the brightest pixels fall just within the right hand end of the histogram.

In the zebra image above, the brightest parts of the photograph are where the sun is behind the zebras’ manes and on their hooves. These pixels will be at the right hand edge of the histogram. Make sure they’re almost but not quite white.

Exposing for the highlights with back lighting often ends up with silhouettes, or near-silhouettes. If you don’t want this effect, you can provide some fill light in the form of flash, or a bounce card. This isn’t always practical for wildlife, and sometimes it isn’t ethical if it would compromise the sight of the animal. I’ll do a separate blog on flash with wildlife, but it’s a very useful tool that’s often overlooked.

If flash isn’t an option and you have an image which you’ve exposed perfectly for the highlights with back-light, but the foreground is too dark, all is not lost – as long as you’ve shot in RAW. I was reminded of this when submitting some tropical bird photos to the RSPB’s image library yesterday, where the back light was often very strong. With a RAW image, you can boost the shadows quite a bit in post production without introducing blockiness or noise. This has the effect of balancing out the dynamic range in the image to be more what the eye can see. Very few cameras can match the range of the human eye, so RAW shooting is definitely your friend here. I’ll do an article about when and how to boost shadows in the future. The image of fallow deer above was shot with the highlights at the right hand end of the histogram and the foreground shadows needed lifting to balance the photograph.

If you have warm sunshine, particularly at dawn and dusk, the camera’s white balance (if on auto) will often assume the scene is a lot cooler than it actually is. You can counteract this by setting a warmer white balance of cloudy or even shade. Occasionally it may have to go beyond this. The best method is to shoot in raw and choose the white balance that matched what you saw in post production. The following image was taken at dawn and the colours really were that orange. I had to dial the colour temperature in to Lightroom afterwards to match what I saw.

Similarly with this robin, I had to make sure the white balance matched the strong warm colours. Sometimes it will be necessary to boost vibrance and/or saturation to really bring out the colours, too.

Interestingly with this robin image, you’ll also notice the strong lens flare and out of focus blurring of direct sunlight into the lens. It can be quite a creative thing to harness, although be careful when looking directly at strong sunlight through your camera, as you could damage your eyes and the camera’s sensor.

I’ll round this post off with three more images which show the use of lovely warm back light: firstly a rim-lit wildebeest (its beard works perfectly for back-light), then a short-eared owl (the lovely evening back-light is when these crepuscular predators hunt) and lastly dawn in Kielder Forest (the back-light coming through the trees and other foliage makes the image so much more interesting than if it had been shot with the sun behind).