Suffering for Your Art

Below is the text of an expository essay I wrote.  It's less expansive than what I want but the essay's word limit forced brevity on me.  It also limited my ability to explain why the suffering part of nature photography is the fun part of it (mainly because that's an entire Master's thesis in psychology).  I may expound on this later as it's a great topic.

“If you’re a nature photographer and you’re not suffering for your art, you’re doing it wrong.”  This is a saying among nature photographers and summarizes the deficit of comfort and surfeit of failure which one usually needs to endure in order to capture a good image from the wild.  Whether shooting pictures of landscapes, flora or fauna, the nature photographer needs to be prepared to work in conditions that are beyond their control and not of their own choosing.  They also need to be willing to accept serial disappointment and failure. 

When one mentions the word “photographer” many people think first of wedding and portrait photographers.  These photographers have almost complete control of their environment.  They control the lighting, the setting and the subject.  They can pose their subjects and anticipate many of their needs, such as what additional lighting will be needed for the church where the wedding is held or which flattering backdrop to use for a portrait. 

For the nature photographer, however, control of lighting, setting and subject is beyond a luxury; it’s largely impossible.  You, as the nature photographer, can do things to enhance the chances of favorable conditions, but in the end you are at the mercy of the elements and the subject.

Lighting can’t be controlled by the nature photographer, but it can be understood and steps taken to account for it.  The best natural light comes in the hour after sunrise and the one before sunset.  This means early to rise and late to bed, guaranteeing little sleep, especially during the long days of summer.  But if the light is bad because it’s overcast, you have to try again tomorrow or the next day.

The nature photographer’s working conditions are, like the lighting, whatever God gives you that day.  It can be freezing cold, blistering hot, or stormy.  The terrain can be dangerous cliffs, leech and mosquito infested swamps, burning sands or snowdrifts.  These conditions are dictated by the setting in which the subject can be found.  This means that if you want polar bears as your subject, you will be headed to the frigid climes of the Arctic Circle, and if you want pictures of toucans, you’re off to the jungle.

For the nature photographer, patience is a not a virtue, it’s a necessity.  You must be able wait for hours on end for your subject to appear, or you can spend hours or days trying to hunt it down.  Even if you are lucky enough that your paths do cross, your subject is not going to pose and your encounter may be so fleeting that you are left with an image in your mind’s eye but not in your camera.

It is rare for a nature photographer to get a good photograph without having endured some discomfort or inconvenience.  Travel to remote places; bad weather and lousy lighting; uncooperative or absent subjects; harsh, hostile or dangerous environs; these are all some of the miseries nature photographers must suffer to do it right and create their art.  It is fortunate that nature photographers take sort of an ironic pleasure in these sufferings so that nature can be brought to everyone else.