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Nature photography as both entertainment and educational tool

A stump that looks like a mountain makes for an amazing nature photography moment, which later leads to an educational moment. Taken this weekend in Norfolk County, ON.
owen may 18 A stump that looks like a mountain makes for an amazing nature photography moment, which later leads to an educational moment. Taken this weekend in Norfolk
A stump that looks like a mountain makes for an amazing nature photography moment, which later leads to an educational moment. Taken this weekend in Norfolk County, ON. (Owen Bjorgan)

Despite the privilege of having a powerful and spacious desktop computer, it churns and moans like a human who ate too much at the buffet. Instead of food, the iMac is full to the brim with hundreds of gigabytes of data.

The culprit? It’s me, force-feeding the machine endless rounds of nature videos and photos. I made another road trip away this weekend with my parents and a couple that we’re great friends with. I was able to show them around some areas I have been picking away at during my Hidden Corners nature documentary series. Sitting back at the desk as I write this, I have found some inspiration to discuss nature photography taken by everything from your phone, to cameras as expensive as a used car.

What cameras do I use for these educational nature films, including images you have seen here in The NOTL Local? As they say, good things come in threes.

As much as I appreciate the biodiversity of an old-growth forest or wetland, I also appreciate camera diversity. I use a GoPro Hero 9 for action shots, durability, and story-telling. The wide angle, built-in stabilizer, and superbly high-quality image that fits in the pocket is an adventurer’s essential. Not to mention that, in light terms, it is “idiot proof.” You can drop it, dunk it, soak it, and muddy it up with no consequence. I use this small but mighty gem to focus on my animal encounters and physical escapades over the terrain.

My second camera is the cinematic and finely detailed Canon Rebel SL2. With its regular and long lens attachment options, I can bring the pupils of a frog or a soaring bald eagle to life in focused and stunning style. It hangs around my deck on any day, providing it isn't pouring rain. It gives me the choice to put the foreground into detail while blurring the background. A subject is a product of its environment, and I can toggle between which of these two facets I'd like to hone in on.

Last but not least, we look to the sky to find the DJI Mavic Mini drone. Cleverly sneaking under the relatively new legal drone licensing requirements, its small and inconspicuous size is a contrast to its enormously bold imagery taking in hundreds of acres at a time. I use it to give viewers a scope of the landscape I am studying, with an added wow factor we all enjoy — a rare glimpse from the air.

How do these three string together and capitalize on the power play, unlike the Toronto Maple Leafs this weekend? The GoPro is filming me as I scamper over logs or push my canoe further into the swamp. Once I find that perfect hole in a dead ash tree, I see an eastern screech owl staring out of it from its place of safety and shelter. I pull out the Canon and zoom in from afar, getting the owl's cute but historically haunting stare into vision. Once I'm satisfied with the encounter, I walk or paddle a little further upstream to a clearing. It is here that I will launch the drone skyward to give viewers an idea of the owl's preferred ecosystem and a context of how far into the woods I am.

This combination of cameras strings together either a photo or video product that reads as a story. These stories educate and inspire the public about why biodiversity matters. Without knowing about a subject, there are barriers to caring about it. When we don't care about the environment, issues such as water quality, flooding, and human-animal conflicts are given room to grow faster than the wildflowers I filmed this weekend.

One blessing of today's technological leaps is that most smartphones are equipped with camera quality that can capture a special moment in time. Many photos and videos in nature photography can be taken from the device in your pocket.

The photo in this article is my favourite one from the weekend in Norfolk County along Lake Erie. Instead of seeing an ancient tree stump in the stagnant water, I see a rugged mountain to ants and frogs, reflecting perfectly off of the freshwater abyss in the forest. Taken with the Canon Rebel SL2.