Getting Started

I’ve made this tab for the people looking to kickstart a career in science, conservation, and wildlife photography. I’ve put this together in order to answer questions like: “how do I get started as a photographer?”, “how do I get involved in big cat science?”, “how do I work for National Geographic?”. Consider this a musing (and a brutally honest one) on the things I’ve learnt while chasing lions up trees in Uganda, and filming and directing three television shows. Before you read on, understand that the road you’ve chosen is a tough one, often incredibly rewarding but all the more unpredictable (hence my cynicism at times)!

Working as a professional scientist, photographer, videographer, or on camera personality takes more dedication than academic prowess, or even a fancy degree like a PhD. It might sound cheesy but its your perseverance and the size of your heart that will ultimately get you into the field! You might struggle to find a good story or subject and this will always be more important than your equipment. For example, Malik Bendjelloul shot parts of the Sugar Man documentary on his iPhone and it won an Oscar! Writing and being successful at receiving grants will be key as will making a regular income (not to mention you’ll be constantly travelling), so give all of this some thought. If you are OK with all of the above and are up for adventure and riches in lifestyle and not necessarily money, please read on.

How do I become a biologist or scientist working on big cats or rare and endangered wildlife?

The easiest (but not cheapest!) way to do this is to pursue a formal academic degree - this is one of the most straightforward paths to getting into the field and studying the big cats (or any other wildlife you love). If you look at the best conservation projects out there, they are almost always led by scientists and people that pursued an academic degree (some hold PhDs, others BScs, or a Masters). You might be asking why is this the most straightforward route? Well, when you are first starting out you inevitably want to work under a mentor or a professor who already has access to a field site, knows the local wildlife department and has funding to answer the questions you want to investigate. This access to a field site is in my view the most important entry into a wildlife career (in other words will the wildlife authority in your chosen country of interest give you a permit to do conservation, science or even allow you to take photos for a story or video?).

I understand that you may not have the means to pursue an academic degree (it is becoming increasingly expensive to pursue university education). If you don’t, the other way to get in the field is to contact (and I mean phone and badger because they are busy or out of cell reception) the top people in the field and ask them if you can volunteer/work on their project (often for little pay or none at all!). This will be a tough road and you’ll likely have to phone, email and literally bother the heck out of the people in the field (do not give up!). The good news is that there are a lot of projects out there and if you don’t get to work on lions you might get to work on caracals. You could even help fundraise for the projects as a way to get your foot in the door (with COVID-19 many projects were on a knifes edge and many collapsed due to a lack of funding so this could be a critical skill to get into a project). I’ve taken the liberty of giving you a tiny head start and here are a few good universities and people you can approach if you already have a BSc, Masters or honours (if you don’t they still might take you on as a volunteer) and want to work on big cats in the form of a formal scientific project (this could be anything from investigating what a leopard population eats in the mountains of the western Cape to figuring out how to reduce wildlife collisions in Idaho, USA - one tip; ask them what they are working on):

Amy Dickman, David Macdonald (both at the University of Oxford, UK), Dan Parker (Rhodes University, South Africa), Lourens Swanepoel (University of Venda, South Africa), Jan Venter (Nelson Mandela University, South Africa), Guy Balme (University of Cape Town, South Africa), Scott Creel (Montana University, USA), Adrian Treves (Wisconsin Madison, USA), Nigel Leader Williams (Cambridge, UK) - if none of these can help try a search in Google Scholar (this is the Google Search Engine for Academic Research). If you’re interested in working on scarlet macaws type in “scarlet macaw”, if its leopards try “leopards”, followed up with a geographical area like “Brazil” or “South Africa” respectively. You’ll start to see some names on the scientific papers, you’ll notice the emails of the lead authors, that’s how I found my supervisors (turns out the world is small and these scientific fields are tiny - everyone knows everybody else).

How do I become a photographer or a videographer?

As silly as this sounds, the easiest way to become a photographer is to practice as much as you can and find a really good story to shoot! If you’re interested in photographing wildlife for a big publication like National Geographic or the New York Times get to grips with the reality that you also have to learn how to photograph people (and very well). Pick up the most recent issue of National Geographic and see how many wildlife stories are actually just about wildlife (commonly known as natural history). The answer is nearly zero! The stories magazines like National Geographic are looking for almost always revolve around everything surrounding the wildlife species themselves - the conflict, the dangers they face, the people saving (and killing) them (we are living in a world where we have to share spaces!). I always give an example of the monarch butterfly: its tiny with a wingspan of just 3-4 inches yet their migrations can be 500 000 strong. If someone gave you an assignment of shooting a story about monarchs what would you cover? You might think…hell probably the monarch itself. No! You’d cover the monarchs critical habitat, the threats (people and activities) destroying that habitat, you’d shoot what they feed on, the migration, the people saving them, and studying them…there are literally a million things that are linked to monarchs but the pictures would not be of monarchs themselves! Those are good aspects that make a great story! Think outside of the box! These are the story traits that are going to get you ahead of the increasingly competitive field of your peers. Your equipment is nowhere near as important as your ability to frame an image, the content of that image and a basic understanding of compositional elements, depth of field and lighting. It is critical to reiterate: You do not need an expensive camera (I’d look on Facebook market place for an excellent and well priced secondhand camera). If equipment is your focus out the gate then you have already lost the race. Get a basic DSLR or mirrorless model and go! And remember…Nick Nichols, arguably the best wildlife photographer to grace the pages of National Geographic Magazine got rejected by the magazine for (I think…8 years)…so keep at it!

What about Money

Ask everyone - literally, approach every entity you can think of. Approach apparel companies to give you clothes, ask food companies to supply your rice and tuna cans when you’re in the field, start a small crowdfunding page (I’ve done this for 3 or 4 of my projects) and then yes, write grants! National Geographic Society offer a number of really good grant of various sizes, as do the Scientific Exploration Society, and Royal Geographic Society. Look online and search for hours…its not easy writing them and that’s why you write 15 NOT 1! If you’re working as a cameraman or photographer your daily rate will range widely from maybe US$ 100 to US$ 1000 depending on who you are shooting for, for how long, and how good you are (ie. can you operate technically challenging equipment and worth hundreds of thousands of dollars).

Conservation/science is rarely a job!

Well they are but they aren’t! Early career science and media work is tough - prepare to live modestly. The average Australian postdoc makes US$ 56 000 per year! A typical PhD stipend (living allowance) in Australia is US$17 000 per year! Yep, that is a person earning little over US$ 1 400 per month to do science at the postgraduate level (and with increasing living costs and surging inflation)! And these are good wages by global standards, the UK and USA are no better. You are going to have to hustle to earn a decent living and you will have to learn charisma, presentation, and writing skills to supplement your income! But then again you’ll be studying and enjoying lions in Africa, or pumas in Patagonia so that is pretty much priceless!

Want more advice? I offer a one on one career consultancy service for people at alexander.braczkowski@gmail.com