George Anderson uses his arsenal of Tamron lenses to take pictures of his feathered friends in Minnesota and Florida.

By Jenn Gidman
Images by George Anderson

When George Anderson finished his tour in Vietnam in 1970, he had a little money saved up that he hoped to use to buy a fine china set for himself and his wife back home. But when he got off the plane in Japan before heading back to the US, there was a camera store just steps away. "All my money disappeared in that camera shop," he says. "I still have the camera—and I'm still married to the same woman—so it all worked out."

Today George dabbles in nearly every photographic genre, though he admits he's particularly drawn to macro, nature, and wildlife—especially birds. "I have a beautiful home in Minnesota with wooded acreage," he says. "I've identified more than 40 birds right on my own property. I also travel to Florida every year, which is where I look for wading and shore birds, some of my favorite subjects."

In George's lens arsenal: the Tamron SP 24-70mm VC, 28-300mm VC PZD, and SP AF200-500mm. He also recently bought the new Tamron SP 150-600mm VC lens, which he tested before he even took it on a birding adventure. "Whenever I get a new lens, I put the camera on a tripod, lock the mirror up, and find myself a detailed subject," he says. "I test the lens at every aperture and different shutter speeds and then examine all of the images. What I'm doing is creating a benchmark: I want to see what this lens is possible of shooting under optimum conditions. Then, when I start shooting out in the field, that benchmark gives me something to work toward to achieve the sharpest images with that particular lens."

His verdict on the 150-600 so far? "I have five kids and 16 grandkids, so I have lots of things other than camera equipment I can spend my money on," he says. "For me, the 150-600 is an excellent value in an easy-to-carry package with no compromise on quality. I get terrific results with this lens."

George doesn't use a tripod for his birding images—"I've found a monopod with a gimbal head works best for me"—so the Vibration Compensation (VC) feature on most of his Tamron lenses helps him keep his birding photos sharp by getting rid of camera shake. "I'm getting to the age where I can't hold things as steady, and when I use a tripod, my feet often get tangled up in the legs," he says. "So I'll simply face the monopod one way, then use myself as the other anchor point. And I've found I can use the VC just fine when I'm using the monopod."

While some birding photographers prefer to head out into the wild and see what the day parades in front of their cameras, George believes planning and patience help ensure better results. "I don't think you can take good bird photos by accident," he says. "For example, I'll often head to the shore specifically to get a feel for the place before I photograph there, to see when the tide goes out and when it comes in, and to pinpoint when certain birds will be hanging out," he says. "There are places in Florida's Fort De Soto Park, for instance, where if you go at the wrong time of day and the tide is high, you won't be able to take pictures of your favorite birds because you can't access those prime spots."

Part of George's birding-photography process also involves understanding the light and letting it guide his picture-taking process. "What I tell people is to become a connoisseur of light," he says. "For example, I'll instruct my students to watch a movie and in any one scene try to pick out what they used for lighting in that scene."

He'll also advise his students to think harder about how the light shapes what they see and what they want to photograph. "People will often walk by a particular subject and say, 'Wow, I should take a photo of that,' but they may not know why," he explains. "I'll ask, 'Why did you think that photo was neat? What did you see there that drew you in?' Then I tell them to walk by that same spot or subject at another time of day to see if it intrigues them as much. That's all a function of different lighting and helps them understand how lighting works a little better."

To obtain the best birding photos, it's important to understand when they're most likely to be out and about. "Animals in general, and birds in particular, are creatures of habit—they're driven by the concept of survival, including eating," George says. "If you can understand when a bird eats and how it eats, you can pinpoint the best photo opportunities. For example, I have a juneberry bush in my yard. I always know that on the day those berries ripen, that bush will be filled with birds. So I'll position my pickup truck as a blind early in the morning and then photograph from the driver's side. Sure enough, the birds show up, and I get a bunch of neat photos."

Staying unobtrusive with the long reach of his telephoto lenses allows George to photograph his subjects with minimal disruption, meaning he can often return to the same spot and strike a rapport with the birds. "They're skittish and fearful by nature, so you don't want to run up to them and upset their daily routine," he says. "You won't have any success as a photographer that way. And I'm not going to take a photo at the expense of disrupting what the birds are doing, such as building a nest or raising their young."

A bunch of nesting trumpeter swans a few miles from his house gave George the chance to build up their trust. "I would stop my truck along the lake around the same time every day to photograph them while they were building their nest," he says. "At first they would stop what they were doing and watch me closely. Then, after three or four days, they didn't care I was there, and I was able to capture many images of them at work. I was even able to predict when one of the eggs in the nest would hatch, and when I came back the next day—sure enough, there was a baby nestled in between its two parents."

George seeks out backgrounds that position his subjects as the focus of the image. "In my early photographic days, I would concentrate my viewfinder so much on the subject that I wouldn't notice a telephone pole coming out of the bird's head or wires in the background," he says.

He's since taught himself to scan the entire viewfinder when he's taking a picture. "With a long lens especially, you don't have to move too far up and down or left to right to change the background," he says. "If you're conscious of what's in your viewfinder, you can simply move to the left or right just a step or two or stand on your tiptoes to change the background. If that doesn't work, I can play around with depth-of-field to blur out the background so I isolate my subject."

If a bird is in flight or otherwise moving, George will try to lead the viewer into the image by placing an element in front of where the bird is facing, he explains. He also tries to get the composition right from the get-go. "I can finagle the composition in post-processing with cropping, but I prefer to get it right in-camera," he says. "I try to make sure that no part of the bird is cut off in the frame, for example."

But most of the time, George takes intimate portraits of his subjects at rest. "It appeals to me to show more of the bird's environment," he says. "Sometimes with long lenses and wide apertures, you can get a pretty narrow feel, so it's the eye I like to put as the main focal point. For a photo I took of a snapping turtle's face, for example, I would have had to stop down to F/100 to get his whole face in focus, so instead I concentrated on his eye. His nose is a little out of focus, but the image still works. Eyes are the window to our souls, whether it's of people or animals, so that's what I try to show in my birding photos."

Above all, George says not to be disappointed if you go out and don't get the birding photo you had in mind when you set out. "People get frustrated if they don't get a certain scene or a bird doing exactly what they want it to do, but that's not how nature and wildlife works," he says. "You can't come back with that photograph every time you go out. Of course, that photo is a great thing to aspire to, but don't sweat it if you don't get it. You'll get plenty of other good ones."