There’s a big difference between coming upon a beautiful animal in the field and understanding how to capture a spectacular shot of your imposing subject. This tutorial with expert Kevin Hatley reveals what he says are “five essential skills for success in wildlife photography.”

Hatley is an accomplished British pro with an insightful YouTube channel devoted to photographing living subjects in the field—everything from birds and mammals to butterflies, reptiles, and insects. The handful of tips you’ll learn in this comprehensive episode is applicable when photographing the aforementioned subjects and others.

This genre of photography not only demands technical proficiency with camera equipment, but also a deep understanding of animal behavior and environmental awareness, Hatley puts it like this: “For aspiring wildlife photographers, developing a core set of essential skills is paramount to capturing stunning and impactful images.”

Hatley says a big challenge with wildlife photography is that we’re not in control because the subjects themselves determine how we proceed. In the next 19 minutes he explores recommended equipment, animal behavior, fieldcraft, subject knowledge, and a fifth skill he considers to be the most important.

Developing this handful of skills takes time, practice, and a willingness to learn. But Hatley insists that by focusing on these key considerations “you can build a strong foundation for capturing the beauty and wonder of the natural world.” Be sure to watch until the end where he reveals his top tip of the day.

Then head over to Hatley’s instructional YouTube channel and explore his many how-to videos that will prepare you for creating some wildlife magic of your own.

And don’t miss a related tutorial we featured earlier with another experienced wildlife photographer who demonstrates how to choose between Shutter Priority and Manual exposure modes when photographing animals in motion and other fast-action subjects.

Everyone loves sunny, cloudless days with bright blue skies when travelling or spending a day at the beach. But when it comes to creating compelling landscape photographs, well, not so much.

This tutorial from photographer Andrew Banner explains four super simple tips for making stunning landscape photos when the blue sky you confront is plain and featureless with nary a cloud in sight.

Banner is a passionate British pro who shares behind-the-scenes lessons after exploring the hills and dales near his home in the picturesque Norfolk Broads and further afield. He introduces today’s eight-minute episode like this: “Blue skies are rarely a photographer’s dream because they’re so stark, and you often get unpleasing direct sunlight that doesn’t make for great images.”

One easy way to handle this challenge is to “consider shooting for black-and-white processing because there’s an awful lot more you can do with it in black and white” And the simpler the sky the better your results will be when taking this approach.

Banner illustrates his second tip with an attractive shot of a yacht under sail with dark blue water in the foreground and a vivid blue sky overhead. In this case the shot looks pretty great as is because of Banner’s thoughtful composition skills.

As he explains, “It works quite well because we’re effectively joining the lower area of the water with the middle area of the waves, the sky itself, and the white sail and mast in the middle of the frame.” In essence, the shot is captivating because you’re respecting and accentuating the boundaries of these key elements to create a compelling graphic look.

At this point we’ve reached the midpoint of Banner’ interesting tutorial, with two more tipis on the docket that are just as simple and effective as those mentioned above. So watch until the end and then sail over to Banner’s instructional YouTube channel where there’s much more to learn.

And on a similar note, don’t miss the recent tutorial we featured with one of our favorite post-processing instructors who demonstrates how to rehabilitate drab, boring landscape photographs by adding natural-looking lights rays in Lightroom.

In the next five minutes you’ll learn why and how changing the aspect ratio of your photo is a quick-easy-way to strengthen its impact on the viewer. The five-minute tutorial from the Better Pics YouTube channel explains how to get the job done with precision using an oft-ignored feature in Lightroom’s Crop tool.

Instructor Damien is founder of the popular channel and a globe-trotting pro based in Australia. He explains the concept of aspect ratio like this: “It’s the ratio of the long side of your image to the short side of the image.” In other words, the overall shape of your shot.

You may be wondering why Lightroom is necessary because most digital camera’s feature built-in aspect ratios like 4:3, 3.2 and 16.9. The problem is that these options can be far too limiting depending upon the image at hand and the look you want to create.

This is where Lightroom’s Aspect Ratio feature saves the day. Damien opens a nice landscape image shot at his default 3:2 ratio. He goes to Lightroom’s Crop tool panel, where you’ll see Aspect Ratio at the top. A dropdown menu then appears with a long list of options.

The image on your screen changes accordingly as you click on each of the crops in the list, including a square shape for use with social media posts. The key option for this discussion, however, the one called “Custom.”
As Damien says, “this give you the flexibility to click and drag to create any shape that you want, like an extreme panorama, a super skinny vertical, or whatever it may be.” There’s also a window where you can manually input numerical values for both width and height,

Damien walks you everything necessary so that you don’t limit the shape of your images with standard defaults. Be sure to check out the Better Pics YouTube channel for more helpful how-to videos

And don’t miss the tutorial we featured earlier from another very popular instructor who demonstrates how to take advantage of Adobe’s “premium” color grading presets to create awe-inspiring photographs in an instant.