I'm interested in becoming a professional wildlife photographer. How can I start?

On that note, to understand what that would entail, I give you one of my old Facebook posts (December 1, 2016):

I went to Gri Gri Lagoon today. There is a mangrove forest there, with a cattle egret nesting colony, but I didn´t know whether there would be nests at this season. As I was walking along the edge of the colony, suddenly, I was transported into a wildlife documentary. There was a black crowned night heron, and I noticed the way it moved as it climbed the tree – almost cat-like – was it stalking a nest? It was. Before my eyes, it snatched an egret chick, by the head. But the chick was heavy and strong, and struggled free. At the end of the struggle, the chick was dangling from a branch by one foot. Of course there was a great to-do among the egrets; and the to-do attracted a yellow crowned night heron and a vulture – opportunists. The chick eventually struggled back onto the branch and perched there, but I did not see it make any attempt to climb back to the nest. And by that time, I did not see either of the two night herons.
Now, about my reference to a wildlife documentary. One of the criticisms leveled at wildlife documentaries is that they create a false impression of nature´s drama. You see a documentary, and then you go out in nature, and by comparison, it looks like there is nothing going on. You don´t see the long, tedious days the filmmakers spent, the hours of patient boredom punctuated by occasional money shots. After weeks or months, when they finally accumulate 45 minutes worth of money shots, then they send it to editing. All you see is the dramatic moments, which, for some television viewers, can lead to the belief that you could really see all that action in 45 minues out in nature. Not so. My countless hundreds of hours spent immersed in nature have made me keenly aware of just how rare it is to see what i saw today, and how lucky I am. If I had come by that spot just a couple of minutes earlier or later, all I would have seen was a bunch of white birds flapping around in the mangroves.

7 Likes