Photographs make us stop and look at the world in a different way. They can make us focus in on a particular aspect of a subject, look at the familiar from an alternative viewpoint, enable us to see things we would never otherwise have the opportunity to see, and trigger a variety of emotional responses. Most of the time we see without really looking, we gather impressions and rarely stand and look or examine. Often we see what we want to see or what we expect to see rather than what is actually there!

The word photograph comes from two Greek words - photos meaning light and graphein meaning to draw.

In photography, the photographer has control over a number of variables. These determine the quality of a particular photograph.

The photographer obviously selects the subject. With wildlife photography it may be that many other variables are to an extent out of the control of the photographer. After all it is wild life. Patience is a definite virtue!

The variables that are under control are those relating to the camera, the film and lighting in terms of the situation and/or time of day selected for the photographing.