About the Joys and Distresses of a Nature Photographer

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Harpy Eagle (Harpia harpyja) lands on its nest under rain at
Serra da Bodoquena National Park, Bonito, Brazil
PHOTO: © Daniel De Granville, 2006

Biology became part of my professional life prior to photography, but my connections with nature come from much longer ago, since I was a kid and didn’t even have to think about a career. I still remember my mom’s reaction on the day she went into my bedroom and found the walls covered with hairy caterpillars, which I had brought home in a shoebox and wanted to “care for ‘till they turned into butterflies”.

Due to this strong bond with wildlife since my childhood, associating these two activities – photography plus biology – and making a profession out of them has been, more than a planned objective, a natural tendency. To know animals both in theory and with hands on, and to like them a lot, is crucial to get the images that I’m looking for.

But despite all of the glamour associated with nature photography, it is not an easy career. One day you find yourself waking up extremely early in places such as the Pantanal, having to walk in the dark through swamps full of caimans and surrounded by clouds of mosquitoes, before the rising of a sun that will soon make temperatures go over 100 oF. Next week you might be freezing your ears and fingers on the edge of a cliff, at the top of some mountain in the Bavarian Alps, waiting for the best light. Not only you suffer, but also does the photo gear, which is extremely expensive and delicate. A minor failure and all of your work may be lost… This keeps me constantly tense when I’m out in the field, until the photos are finally saved into my computer, printed on paper or delivered to the client.

The photos which illustrate this text, for example, took a total of over 40 hours of “stand by” under adverse and risky conditions, in exchange for a few good shooting moments – maybe no more than 5 minutes…

At the same time, however, it is an incredibly gratifying life. Each time that I spend hours observing scenes that very few people in our planet will ever have a chance of seeing, such as a rare species of hawk bringing prey to feed its young at the first morning light, I feel privileged and realized.

Ornate Hawk Eagle (Spizaetus ornatus) takes care of its young in the nest – Maracaju Mountain Range, Brazil
Photo: © Daniel De Granville, 2006

People will frequently ask me if I’m not afraid of spending hours or days alone in remote areas full of animals and other “perils of nature”. Maybe I really should be more careful about certain risks, but whenever I’m photographing in a natural area I feel totally integrated with everything that surrounds me. Moreover, I must concentrate a lot in order to do my job, and here such worries which could disturb me simply don’t fit in.

To me, the most important of all in this job, besides persistence, patience, concern with minimum details and a restless personality, is to adopt an ethical attitude towards natural environments. Firstly, I never accept to cause an excessive disturbance in a certain place just to get the image that I want. Second, I always feel obliged to reward nature for every good thing that it has provided me with until today.

Showing my photos is one of the means that I have to reach this objective. If people become thrilled upon seeing these images and raise their awareness and admiration about nature, I consider that my mission is accomplished.

One hand, five fingers, fifity mosquitoes! (On assignment in the Pantanal)
PHOTO: © Daniel De Granville, 2006

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