I think it’s important to not approach wildlife photography just as a means of documenting a species. I’m definitely guilty of this at times, but in general I really believe it makes for typical, and very boring, photographs. What I’ve been trying to do more of lately is take a more stylistic and artistic approach to my wildlife photography, really focusing on framing, composition, light, and less so on capturing those close or majestic headshots that some photographers are looking for. By all means there certainly is a place for that, but I have much more fun when I try to paint a picture or tell a story with a photograph, not to mention you end up with more unique images. Consider my following photograph of a blue jay harrassing a red-tail hawk for a second… would you rather see this shot better-exposed, framed more closely, seeing the colors of the blue jay against the cloudy sky, or do you prefer this extremely under-exposed image, with a gloomy sky, and the shadowy figures of the two birds almost melting into the darkness of the tree branch?
