DUSK TO DAWN: WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY AFTER HOURS
There’s a magical world after dark few of us get to see, let alone photograph. Familiar beasts reveal a different side to their nature, predators go on the prowl and a host of strange and less familiar nocturnal creatures emerge from their daytime hiding places.
Without the distraction of background clutter, with shapes seemingly enhanced and features magnified in the velvet blackness of the ‘night-studio’, it’s possible to ramp up the intensity of your wildlife shots and make memorable captures.
The catch in all this wealth of untapped potential is that photographing between sunset and sunrise isn’t easy. To reap the rewards of low-light and no-light shooting you’ll face some unique challenges and no mean share of frustration. You’ll need dedication, a fair bit of field knowledge and the drive to succeed by trial and error - in short, all the qualities of a good wildlife photographer. You’ll also need a night-time skill set and a certain level of technical expertise to get it all right, but here’s where our own experience photographing after dark can help get you started and inspired.
NIGHT-HUNTING FOR SUBJECTS
You don’t necessarily have to fly to exotic locations to photograph wildlife at night: your own backyard probably has plenty of scope, from little critters like spiders, scorpions, lizards and moths, to bigger stuff like mammals. The great thing about garden animals is they’re often more relaxed, living in closer proximity to people, so it’s not a bad place to start your hunt for good subjects. For the same reason we’re always on the look-out for habituated nocturnal species living in and around camps when we’re on game reserves on safari in Africa, creatures such as genets, bushbabies,
