Kristofer Rowe seeks out animal emotion with his Tamron SP 150-600mm VC and SP 70-200mm VC lenses.

By Jenn Gidman
Images by Kristofer Rowe

Kristofer Rowe had no interest in photography until he first picked up a camera while trying to fight an alcohol addiction. "Photography became my new addiction," says Rowe, who has now been sober for four years. "I put down the bottle and picked up the camera, and I've been taking pictures ever since."

His specialty: photographing the birds and wildlife near his home in Connecticut. "I take pictures of a lot of the animals at the Ray of Life Farm, a rescue organization near me that houses pigs, horses, llamas, and even a zonkey (a zebra-donkey mix)," Kristofer says. "I also do a lot of raptor portraits for A Place Called Hope, a raptor rescue-and-rehab center that saves hundreds of sick or injured raptors a year so they can try to heal them and get them back out into the wild."

Although he enjoys taking pictures of any creature with wings, from the juvenile red-tailed hawk to the northern saw-whet owl, Kristofer's favorite bird to photograph is the osprey—and he's remained dedicated in his quest to master his photos of them. "It was tough in the beginning," he says. "I would get frustrated trying to get a picture of an osprey way out on a post," he says. "But eventually I got the hang of that type of shot and started diversifying. Now I can get a picture of an osprey diving for fish or in flight no problem."

Kristofer has an ample collection of Tamron lenses—including an older 28-105mm F/2.8 and 17-50mm, as well as the SP 180mm Macro—but for birding and wildlife photos, he uses the SP 70-200mm VC and the new SP 150-600mm VC lens. "I'm a Tamron fanboy," he says. "Since I got the 150-600, that's become my workhorse lens for birding; I love the focal-length range for the type of photography I'm doing. I'll switch over to the 70-200 in lower-light situations when I can take full advantage of that fast F/2.8 aperture."

Because Kristofer shoots mostly handheld, the Vibration Compensation (VC) feature on both lenses has proven invaluable. "I use the VC when I'm photographing stationary birds, so basically when I'm going to be shooting below 1/500th of a second," he says. "For birds in flight, when I'm shooting at 1/1000th or 1/1,600th of a second, I'll simply turn it off. The VC has been phenomenal, letting me get sharp handheld shots at 1/60th of a second at 600mm."

Because he's a chef by trade and works from about noon till 10 or 11 at night, early morning is Kristofer's prime shooting time. "Morning light is generally better for photographing birds anyway, because the light's at a more flattering angle, reducing shadows and giving you more feather detail," he says. "But on my days off, I'm out taking pictures all day."

Because wildlife photography doesn't allow you to exact control over your lighting and subjects like other photography might, Kristofer seeks out angles for each image that work best within whatever limited parameters he's working in. "At a certain point, you have to stop seeing the subject and start seeing the light," he says. "You want to find the perfect angle for the light that's coming in and how it mixes with the background. It also depends on the bird or animal itself and where it's chosen to perch; if a bird flies off, you have no idea where it's going to pop up, and you have to go with the flow when it does."

With the fast maximum F/2.8 aperture on the 70-200, Kristofer is able to knock out distracting backgrounds in his images to keep the focus where he wants it: on the creature in front of his lens. "The bokeh on that lens is phenomenal," he says. "I'm able to get really terrific subject isolation, where my subject is completely in focus in front of a beautifully blurred-out background."

While birding images may often focus on the composition of the image, Kristofer prefers to let the bird itself guide him. "I don't want my photos to lack emotion," he says. "Sometimes people will say, 'Look how sharp the image is and the beautiful background I got, which is nice, but many times they forget to look for the bird or animal's expression."

Focusing on the eyes is key to achieving that emotion. "It makes sense focus-wise to center on the eyes, but you also get the essence of who the bird or animal is by doing that," Kristofer says. "I recently photographed a couple of ospreys with bright orange foliage in the background, but the foliage wasn't the main element of the image, though it definitely enhanced it. It was the look in their eyes that made the image."

Through his photos, Kristofer enjoys trying to relay what the animal may be thinking and feeling—and people relate to that. "I love using social media to share my images for just that purpose," he says. "I put a picture of an osprey up on Facebook the other day and someone said something like, 'Wow, that osprey looks really mad. I had a bad day at work, I understand!'"

He stays away from traditional crops, preferring instead to fill the frame when he can. "You get more of the personality that way," he says. "For example, many people think you always have to show the bird's whole body. They'll say, 'Oh, the tip of the wing is cut off in one of your images,' but I did that purposely—I want the viewer to focus on the eyes and the expression, and if a part of the bird's body has to fall out of the picture for me to achieve that, that's OK."

Another way Kristofer veers off the traditional birding-photography path: He doesn't do elaborate setups and doesn't wait for the birds. "I don't sit around with $25,000 worth of equipment until the birds come to me," he says. "I'm always trying to get the most out of the least, and I'm very active. If there are no birds in an area, I'll go to another area. And I always shoot handheld with both lenses, so I don't carry a tripod around—there's nothing to slow me down."

Besides learning camera settings and photography basics, Kristofer advises that logging hours is one of the best things to do to advance your wildlife photography skills. And finding wildlife shouldn't generally be an issue—you just have to go out and look for it. "Everyone always asks me, 'Where did you have to go to find those eagles you're photographing?'" he says. "They're everywhere in my area in Connecticut. It's just that no one knows they're out there, because they don't look for them. There are so many underutilized land trusts all over the country with amazing wildlife, just waiting to be photographed."

Kristofer recommends checking out Lettterboxing.org, a site that tells visitors where to find any of the 20,000 weatherproof boxes hidden around North America—in public places such as parks and land trusts—with rubber stamp kits and logs inside. "It's like geocaching," he says. "You enter your state on the site and it shows you where all these great public-access trails are. People don't realize how much public land is right in their own backyards, with plenty of wildlife to photograph."

Put in the time and you might even become a recognizable regular on the birding landscape. "Some of the ospreys see me now and just ignore me," Kristofer says. "That means they're comfortable with me, which means I can get more pictures of them. I've been following one family of great horned owls for three years. And winter's here now—I'm looking forward to photographing the eagles and winter ducks and all the other creatures that come alive during this time of year."

To see more of Kristofer Rowe's work, go to www.flickr.com/photos/coastalconn or check out his Facebook page on www.facebook.com/KristoferRowePhotography.