By TOMMY WILLIAMS / L’Observateur / February 27, 1999

As traffic continues to grow in St. John Parish, you always find yourself lookingfor a different or alternate route to save just a few minutes of your precious time and avoid that daily dose of road rage. More often than not, it seems thatmy path of choice almost always has me crossing Fairway Boulevard to Belle Terre, right past the country club. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t seetwo or three great photo snap shots of wildlife around the pond.

Some of the best nature photos you’ll ever take will be shots that are what I call spontaneous photos. I use term spontaneous because the subject (object orthing being photographed) is normally there by accident. On the other hand,everything else concerning the photo in regards to camera equipment, film and being familiar with the area will not be an accident. Keep in mind that thisinformation pertains mainly to 35mm SLR users.

A zoom lens, tripod and cable release are a must for nature photography. First,zoom lenses are a great asset because, and maybe you noticed, too, real wildlife don’t let you get to close, only the squirrels in City Park do. Secondly, if youopen up (F5.6 and lower) the aperture on a zoom lens, your going to see thebackground go out of focus, while keeping only the subject in focus. A cablerelease with the assistance of a tripod will help keep the camera steady due to wind or shutter vibrations.

Film choice depends on the time of day and general lighting conditions in a given area. Although using a tripod and cable release will allow you to use slowerfilm speeds, I tend to prefer 200 ASA film when shooting nature photography. Itprovides good color saturation, great contrast and relatively fine film grain pattern for great enlargements.

Most importantly, know the area you want to photograph. Spend a little timestudying the environment and landscape to see where animal wildlife tend to gather. It could be a particular tree stump, an embankment near a pond or on awooden fence in your backyard. The areas around here are limitless, just takeoff your blinders and look around for them.

Using the right camera equipment and film speed and being familiar with the area will help you produce great spontaneous nature photos.

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