10 years of photography: Be ready to get wet and dirty! (About clothing)

  Hard to believe that it's 10 years since I grabbed a digital camera for the first time and started photography. First I shot all kinds of subjects and it took quite a while to find out what I want to photograph. Then more and more I found my self shooting nature and wildlife, especially the small critters, from insects to reptiles. In ten years you learn a lot, but of course there is still a lot to learn and much new things to try out in photography. In this and a few upcoming posts I thought to share a few things I've learned during these couple of years.

  Nature and wildlife photography is mainly done outdoors, that's pretty obvious. Outdoors means dirt. Dirt means dirty and wet clothes. doesn't sound nice, but actually all this means good pictures. When I started, I usually wore the best clothes I had. It's nice to be well dressed and to look cool when in the forest. Most probably squirrels and snakes do like to get photographed by a guy who's wearing hes best clothes. Not! Animals don't care and when dressed in too good clothes you are more probably afraid of getting dirty, than focusing on making pictures, that's at least what used to happen to me. With the years gone by I've started to choose my outdoor clothes so that a little dirt or if they get broken, wont be a too bad thing. Even my wife is probably a little happier that way.

  For this picture of a pond terrapin I had to get wet and dirty. First I dug him up from the bottom of the pond. This meant that both of my rubber boots got filled with dirty and cold water. Then I had to lie down next to it for a low angle image, which meant dirty and wet clothes. I even got my elbow full of bites from some strange insects. But I made the image.
  So it's important to wear clothes when photographing. But don't wear clothes that are preventing you from making that good picture.