Guide: Composing a Great Wildlife Photograph

Originally posted: June 2013; updated: October 2025

In this guide I want to think about some of the artistic elements of composition that go together in creating an outstanding photograph, and which will hopefully be useful for getting started with own wildlife photography, and will help you take great photographs regardless of the gear you're using. I'm going to assume that you've already tackled the basics of knowing your subject and knowing your camera, and so this article just focuses on some compositional basics.

1. What kind of photograph do you want to take?

This image of a diver inside a shipwreck provides not only the atmosphere of a dark wreck at depth, but also the abundance of life that utilise man-made structures underwater. 

You won't necessarily have a particular message in mind for every photograph - sometimes you might just be experimenting or exploring a new location. Past that though, it's worth thinking about what kind of photo you want to take and the message you want to convey. Are you trying to tell a particular story? Do you have a particular subject to document? How do you want the audience to feel about the photograph and the subject? For example, is the subject exploited in some way? Do you want to show a particular behaviour? Do you want to show the animal in the context of its wider habitat? Do you want the image to feel dynamic or still? Exciting or peaceful? How important is the environment around the subject? How are you going to grab the viewer's attention and keep it where you want it to be?

This shot is of a guillemot landing, and the other birds provide context that this photo is from a crowded breeding colony, and the 3-4 birds that are really paying attention to the landing bird give a good idea of where the bird is going to land (and who it's likely to land on!)

Maybe it's the ecologist in me, but I love trying to show animals within the broader context of their environment to show the important links between animals and their habitat.

How you answer those questions will have a direct bearing on how you will want to compose your images. Since this is something that for the most part has to be done in-camera when you take the shot, and not afterwards in post-processing, it is worth considering the kind of shots you want to come home with before you head out to at least make sure you've got the right gear with you.

2. Think about your angle of view

The angle from which you shoot your image can be used to define the relationship between the photographic subject and the viewer. We use phrases every day like 'looking up to' or 'looking down on' a people we might respect or dismiss respectively, and the same principles apply in photography. If you shoot downwards on your subject, you are putting the viewer in a position of dominance over it and diminishing the perceived status of the subject; whereas shooting upwards elevates the subject to the dominant position over the viewer. Both angles can be extremely effective and drastically alter the dynamic of the image.

Most often however, wildlife photographers will aim to shoot at eye level with the subject, as this angle balances the relationship and puts the animal subject on a perceived equal footing with the viewer. Since wildlife photography is often about sharing an intimate glimpse into the life of an animal, creating this sense of equality can be enormously powerful in creating a connection with the viewer, particularly where you have eye contact with the subject (but we'll come back to eyes a little later) and can get close to it.

Looking up to the gulls and maintaining eye contact makes them appear more intimidating than by shooting them from above or at eye-level. Similarly, images without eye contact feel more passive than those with eye contact.

It's also worth considering how you can use your angle of view to create an interesting or novel perspective on the subject. As human beings, we mostly see the world from about 1.5m above the ground. We are used to looking up at birds flying above us and looking down on a fish in a pond for example. Changing that perspective so we are either at eye-level with the subject or looking at it differently (e.g. looking down on a bird in flight or upwards at the fish) can create much more interesting and unusual images that will grab attention.

Getting up close and personal with a giant petrel gives a different view on these oceanic scavengers.

Remember that you're unlikely to arrive at a site and immediately happen to be standing at the best possible angle to capture your subject, so move around and experiment: lie down, find a higher vantage point, whatever you can safely do to change your perspective on a scene will often help get a photograph that's a bit different than a typical snapshot.

3. Positioning the subject in the frame

i. Rule of Thirds

Probably the most common composition rule that you hear about is the 'rule of thirds'. If you've never heard of it before, it's essentially a simplification of the 'golden ratio' which was defined by the ancient Greeks and states that designs are more aesthetically pleasing if they are divided according to a ratio of approximately 3/8ths : 5/8ths, simplified to 1/3rd : 2/3rds. To apply the rule in photography, we take our image and divide it vertically and horizontally into thirds:

In this image, the plovers and their reflections align pretty well to the horizontal thirds of the image. By placing two birds and their reflections on the intersect points, we strengthen the composition even further.

According to the rule, if we place the subject (or other point of interest) onto one of those lines, we will achieve a more pleasing composition than if we place the subject more centrally in the frame or further towards the edges, with the strongest compositions being those where the subject (or point of interest) occurs at one of the four intersecting points.

There are plenty of situations where this rule doesn't apply of course, but it's a good one to start with. One of the things that new photographers often do is place the subject (or horizon if it's a landscape) centrally in the frame, which doesn't usually create a particularly interesting image, so simply remembering to offset the subject horizontally or vertically can very quickly improve your images and is easy to play around with by trying different crops in post-processing.

ii. Symmetry

So after just saying how boring images can be when the subject is placed centrally, there is an important exception, and this is where you have strong symmetry in a photograph. In these cases, offsetting your subject according to the rule of thirds would leave the image feeling unbalanced compared to a perfectly central alignment:

In images with strong symmetry, applying the rule of thirds will result in an unbalanced image so we place the subject as centrally as possible. The eyes still align with the upper vertical third of the image though.

It is worth noting in the example above though that even though the image is central on the horizontal axis, the major points of interest, the eyes, still align vertically more or less according to the rule of thirds.

iii. Diagonals

One of the interesting things about the human brain is how much it likes diagonal lines and this can be a useful trick to exploit from time to time. For people who read left to right and top to bottom, the strongest diagonal line is the one which runs from bottom left to top right.

Diagonals often work very well for subjects where we don't expect straight lines.

Of course, this doesn't usually work so well for things that we expect to be horizontal or vertical (which is why skewed horizons are so distracting in landscape images when it's not clearly done on purpose), but can be put to great use in situations where we don't have that expectation, like underwater for example.

iv. Give your subject space to move

Unless you need a particularly tight crop of your subject for some purpose (e.g. for an ID guide, or a portrait shot etc.), you can often get a better composition by giving the subject space to 'move' within the frame rather than trapping it inside a tight crop. Where you leave the space has important effects on how your image will feel to the viewer.

The top image feels more tense and unbalanced as there is empty space behind the bird, but nowhere for it to move to. The lower image by comparison gives more of a sense of expectation. 

Generally, if you give the subject a bit of negative space in front of it (either in the direction of travel if it's moving, or the direction in which it's facing or looking) you'll create a sense of expectation in the image, by giving the subject space to move forwards. If you place the negative space behind the subject though, you can create a feeling of tension in the image since the expectation is for something to fill the space behind the subject. The hint of an unknown threat can add an extra dynamic to your image.

4. Pay attention to the background

When you're busy focusing on taking the perfect shot of your subject, it can be incredibly easy to forget about the background, but it is nonetheless one of the most important parts of your composition by creating context for your subject or negative (empty) space around it, allowing it to stand out.

Distracting backgrounds will prevent the viewer from focusing on the important parts of the image by blocking or constantly pulling their attention away from the subject.

Generally, an uncluttered, simple background works best which you can achieve by shooting against a uniform background or by using a wide aperture to throw the background out of focus (bokeh). In the example above, the blue-green chromis on the left blend into the background, which contains lots of distracting dark patches and keeps dragging our attention away from the fish. The image on the right not keeps the background more simple and clean and allows us to look at the fish without having our eyes constantly pulled away.

5. Anchor Points

As your eye moves around photograph, it will (hopefully!) eventually settle onto an anchor point within the image (assuming the eye hasn't been led out of the frame and there aren't too many distracting elements). The anchor point should be the thing that we want the viewer to be drawn to and spend most of their time looking at, so it's important to understand a few of the properties that make a strong anchor point so you can create a powerful image that doesn't simply distract the viewer and draw attention elsewhere. Funnily enough, it turns out that our brains like looking at bright, shiny things!

The main things that tend to draw and anchor the eye are areas of:

i. Brightness

In this photograph, the bright reflection on the snorkeller's head helps draws the eye to them due to the contrast with the rest of the image.

A flash of brightness somewhere in the image grabs our attention and pulls our gaze over to it. Watch out if you're shooting on bright days, or using a flash around reflective surfaces since you can end up with a sparkly, confusing image!

ii. Colour

The bright yellow of the gull's feet and bill immediately grab the viewer's attention and bring the focus to the bird's face and eyes, which is exactly where we want it to be.

A little splash of a contrasting or complementary colour can go a long way to drawing the eye. Yellows and reds are common warning colours in nature and we are naturally drawn to even small patches of them. While you might not be able to change the natural colours of your subject, you can often choose the setting to enhance or subdue them to achieve the effect you want.

iii. Sharpness

The sharpness of the Aristotle's Lantern in the mouth of the urchin draw the eye by being sharper than the rest of the animal. 

Finally, our eyes also focus naturally on the things we look at, bringing them into sharp relief and throwing peripheral areas out of focus. When we look at a photograph, the focal point has already been determined by the photographer for us, and so our eyes are drawn to that area of sharpness. Sharpness can only be properly achieved by getting your focus right in-camera when you take the shot, to make sure your focal point is absolutely accurate to get the best results. That means that if you want the subject's eye to be sharp, you set your focus on the eye. Not the face, the eye.

Eyes: A special case

A female American alligator in the Florida Everglades

A final, and particularly important anchor point in wildlife or portrait photography are the eyes. Our brains are wired to pay attention to eyes and eye-like shapes and will be naturally drawn to anything that looks like one, so some of the most striking photographs are those in which all the elements of the composition draw the viewer in to anchor on the subject's piercing gaze. If that eye is a contrasting colour to the rest of the image, perfectly sharp and bright (usually highlighted with a 'catchlight') then so much the better.

6. Leading Lines

Leading lines are simply the lines within the frame that lead the eye through an image before it (hopefully) settles onto an 'anchor point'. If used correctly, these lines should keep the eye within the frame and draw it to the main point of interest in your shot (either the subject or an interesting part of the subject, for example its eye, or perspective lines which draw the eye right into the image).

This is otherwise not a very interesting photograph, but the two leading lines in this image do clearly work to draw the eye to the sea urchin.

In the photograph of the diver and the urchin, there are two main leading lines - the first is the diagonal line of stone leading us up to the urchin and the second is the beam of light provided by the diver on the left. Even though the torch itself is the brightest point in the image, the two leading lines form an arrow which point us to the true subject of the shot.

Many leading lines arise naturally through the shape of the animal itself and all the photographer has to do is frame the subject well and avoid adding distractions.

With closer-shot portrait shots, you probably don't need to worry too much about setting up the leading lines yourself as the limbs of the animal tend to lead back to the head and face normally anyway. If you're shooting an animal without such obvious features though (e.g. many invertebrates) it's worth considering how best to frame the shot beforehand.

If you have lots of lines leading in lots of different directions through your image, the eye gets drawn off in lots of different directions (or worse, out of the frame entirely) and is never allowed to settle on the real point of interest you are trying to share with the viewer. Usually, if your background is described as 'distracting' it's due to the presence of leading lines which keep pulling the eye away from the subject.

The direction of leading lines can also have an effect on the mood of the image. If you predominantly have horizontal lines running through your image then it tends to produce a sense of calm within the shot, whereas vertical lines are more dynamic and can create more of a sense of tension.

Eyes: That special case again

Leading lines don't always have to be actual lines in your image and in fact one of the most powerful leading lines you can make use of are eye-lines. Psychologically speaking, our brains are programmed to home in on eyes more than anything else, and we will follow the gaze of a person or animal to see what they are looking at. So, if your subject is looking elsewhere in the frame, the viewer's eye will follow that gaze to wherever it leads because your brain naturally wants to know what everyone's looking at. Hopefully it's looking at something interesting and doesn't just draw us out of the frame!

This image works because the eyelines of the birds hold our view in the important part of the shot.

This image fails because the fish's eyeline leads us straight out the frame.

By contrast, the grey moray image fails because (besides not being a very good photo in the first place), the subject is looking to the bottom left of the image but... there's nothing there! Because there's nothing there to catch our gaze as we follow the eyeline, we end up being led straight out of the frame, which doesn't work.

7. Rules are made to be broken

Hopefully you've learned something useful from this list that will help you get started. Of course, no creative 'rules' are ever set in stone, and sometimes the most evocative images are ones that break the rules. So: use what works, leave the rest and don't be afraid to play around!

8. Find inspiration from other photographers

Finally, if you're struggling for inspiration or want to get some new ideas on different ways to shoot, it is always worth checking out the winners galleries for the big photographic competitions. These are some of my favourites, but please suggest your own in the comments below:

National Geographic: Photography

Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Online Gallery

British Wildlife Photography Awards: Gallery

So, that's our list! What do you think of this? Are there rules that you like that I've missed? Have you tried to use any of these tips yourself? How did it change your photography? Let me know!