Getting excited: motivation and mistake

Why does anyone choose to go out and do something? There may be many reasons but one that will come up regularly is “because they enjoy doing it”. This is probably the reason you go out and take photographs – or at least why you started going out and taking photographs. 

For me, the enjoyment comes from those moments you share with nature. Quietly observing the beauty of the natural world. A shag diving for fish repeatedly coming up empty-handed and finally appearing with a catch; a tui getting itself ready before singing its heart out to attract a mate; a house sparrow playing with a gull’s lost feather. When I’m close to the action I get excited, especially when it is something I haven’t witnessed before. I enjoy being a part of it. This is why I go out to photograph wildlife: to share these beautiful moments. And this excitement is also one of the biggest problems with getting a great photograph.

When I get excited in the moment, I lose focus. I stop thinking like a photographer and start thinking like a child full of energy. One running back and forth, shouting and waving its arms around. No, I don’t literally do any of those things. But my mind might as well be. I forget to compose, to check the focus, to preempt behaviour. I don’t hold the camera still, I haven’t adjusted the shutter speed or the exposure. Pictures come out blurred with the edges of the subject cut off, the angle not right for the lighting.

One such moment a couple of weeks ago made me realise the scale of the problem. A Tui came and landed on a branch a couple of metres in front of me hoping around eating berries, tossing them up slightly as it went to swallow them. I had predicted where it would fly to next and stood motionless waiting for it to come and munch on the berries. As soon as it landed I noticed my excitement that my prediction was correct. There was some foliage in the way that I had to shoot through, although there was plenty of time to arrange the shot. I got no useable shots. None. Every photo was either out of focus, blurred or didn’t even have the whole of the tui. I hadn’t stopped to think about what I was doing and got lost in the moment instead.

So, is excitement a good thing or not? For me, it is. Even though, because of it, I’ve missed capturing more moments than I can count on my hands in the past month alone. Without that excitement and enjoyment, I wouldn’t go out at all. Plus, those moments when I get excited are now mine to enjoy. I don’t need to share them with everyone, at least not in the way a photograph can portray. I still hope that I can get better at photographing these moments. Keeping my excitement under control or just by being a better photographer such that all the thought processes become subconscious. The likelihood is that I will never manage to get my inner child completely under control in moments like this. Either way, I will be on the lookout for more of these moments, not less.

Do you get excited when you’re out? How does it affect your photography? Let me know in the comments below.