Wild Eye Magazine

Wildlife photography can be a deeply rewarding pursuit, but capturing images that go beyond mere documentation requires creativity and intentionality.

The winners of the Ocean Photographer of the Year 2024 were recently announced in London, revealing stunning images including the overall winner (above) by Rafael Fernandez Caballero, which shows a Bryde’s whale about to engulf a swarm of sardines. In Caballero’s winning image, the sardines are forming what is known as a “baitball,” which is a defensive tactic to ward off predators.

As we threaded through the Beagle Channel, I wondered if this icy continent could live up to the lofty expectations I’d formed since childhood. Growing up reading the tales of Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Roald Amundsen, and Ernest Shackleton, Antarctica became a place of myth in my mind. Would it be as awe-inspiring as those stories made it seem?

Those who eschew social media may not have noticed the deluge of AI-generated landscape and nature images to be found online these days. Guided by prompts provided by the human “creator” that describe what the image content and style should be, these AI-spawned images are often created with the intent of producing maximum impact, “wow-factor,” and generation of “likes and shares,” though the scenes they depict commonly depart from the realistically plausible or possible in significant ways.

There’s no getting around it: wildlife photography is a demanding genre for photography equipment. Whether photographing lions in the Serengeti, penguins in Antarctica, or even just squirrels in the backyard, capturing wildlife typically puts photographers in situations with rough shooting conditions.

Outside of great light, a solid composition might be the single most important aspect of a great landscape image. If you were to ask one hundred landscape photographers what area of their own photography they’d like to improve upon, I bet the vast majority of them would say composition.

Below are 20 tips to increase your productivity when cropping and straightening landscape, nature, and other outdoor photos in Lightroom Classic. At the bottom of this post, check out my video tutorial, where you’ll learn how to quickly crop and straighten landscape images, work with custom aspect ratios, and display Crop tool overlays to improve a photo’s composition in Lightroom Classic’s Develop module.

I frequently see outdoor photographers spending tons of money for the newest camera or lens, and then mounting their fancy new gear on top of a cheap tripod. Not even the very best glass or camera will improve your images if you don’t invest equally in getting the right tripod.