WILDLIFE CLOSE TO HOME
Chenxi Che
When people think of wildlife photography, an image of the African savannah comes to mind, where cheetahs and lions rule the land. As a young photographer, whose income is minimal, travel is not an option for me, so over the years I've adopted my approach to seeking beauty in common creatures found around where I live, quickly I realized there is much more to be discovered than I thought. Local wildlife photography has one key advantage: your mind calms down knowing that you can come back to a location again and again, which gives you the courage to try out different things, maybe a new perspective, or perhaps a backlit, thus unlocking your creativity. In contrast, on a once-in-a-lifetime trip, your brain locks up because you're afraid of losing the standard shots.
My favourite place to visit is my local river called Arga, in a less than five-minute walk I can be on the edge of it. There is no shortage of life here, with kingfishers skimming along the river, white-throated dippers diving in and out in search of insects, beavers feasting on tree barks... but out of all of them, my dearest friend is the Eurasian wren. One spring morning I was casually walking along the Arga, and I noticed a male wren frequently stopping by a tree stump, singing out loud on the way. As I made my way closer, I could vaguely see fibers in its mouth, it was building a nest! I was instantly fascinated by this, so over the next couple of days I returned to the same location every morning, hoping to get more glimpse into this behaviour. At the end of that week, I got some interesting shots.
This article first appeared in PRISMA, Issue 19.