This Photographer Showed Me the Secrets to Capturing Wildlife (FT. @FoxandFir )

Wildlife photography and photography in general is very subjective and there's no right or wrong way to take photos and it's important for you to find your own voice in your own photos the find the people that support you believe in you and are willing to give you help all right we're here with Josh my buddy he is an Overlander and a wildlife photographer and he is going to show a rig this is gonna be a rig tour here we go this is a 2023 Scout Kenai camper weighs like 2 000 pounds sits right in the bed of the truck right here we have all of our propane tanks this is just a quick gear Locker tons of stuff usually my chainsaw goes in there these are Max tracks which help me get unstuck if I'm stuck in mud saying things like that I use them to level me also when I'm at camp and then back here one of the coolest things that we have is our diesel heater so it's right back here you fill up on the outside that way everything's outside we have a garbage bag this is for our toilet obviously the door and then I have extra water extra diesel fuel and extra fuel for the chainsaw and then these are Bedrock Runners so I can hook things to it that are load bearing just like on the other side I have the max tracks I can just hook things and not worry about it and then up top we have a solar panel that's 200 watts and an LED light bar for our clearance lights and then the power of everything we have 2017 Ford F-350 with the 6.7 liter powerstroke diesel engine so what made you want to become a wildlife photographer so when I was a kid my dad did a lot of macro and landscape photography on the weekends and I wanted to have an excuse to hang out with them so I got in the photography myself and that's really where I found the passion for animals and nature a lot of the times I'm by myself it's just me and the subjects or the animals that I'm photographing one of my favorite things is actually sitting outside of fox den because 99 of the time they don't know I'm there and I'm just sharing this moment in time with these little baby foxes and that's just honestly what what gets me out of bed in the morning what would you say to somebody that wants to get into the hobby of wildlife photography I would say it's very easy and it's very rewarding you don't need to go out and spend an insane amount of money on cameras even if you just start with a pair of binoculars just to go out and see these animals just spend as much time outside as you possibly can if there's one animal that really interests you that you really love study the behavior study what it wants to do when it's active when it's not active and just fall in love with the animals I think a lot of people get into it because they want to buy the cool big lenses and don't get me wrong I love buying lenses but a lot of it comes down to just spending the time with the animals and being out in nature foreign so this is the cubby we can hang our clothing in here it's really great has these hooks up top on the bottom is another cubby where we put like all of our other clothing it's really awesome we have like bags just put it right in there and then that leads us right in like this it's our Lifesaver this is where all of our water comes from it has a pump here that you pump it up and then on the bottom it has this really awesome giant filter so technically we'd be able to get like stream and Lake water if we wanted because you know they're full of microbes it's really gross and then we have a sink right here which is awesome just leads right outside and then when you don't want it to be a sink you have this nice flat cooktop and then this is our cooktop right here all things are two burners we have a bunch of propane and then it goes into one of the best features of this entire thing which is our electric cooler and fridge combo so you can set it to one side be frozen items or whatever you want you can completely set the temperatures and it's really efficient that runs off the battery which is actually right here right below me it's a Yeti 1500x and then we charge it with either a truck which is a seven pin connector that comes in the camper or right in the front we have a 200 watt solar panel that you can't see but it's on the outside of it up here we have a really awesome Skylight that also opens completely and you can open it up and crawl on the top of the camper so you have a shade and then a little bug net on one side and then this is actually where I sleep so it's like a full-size bed as cushion I needed a little bit more so I got these like really awesome sleeping pads and then if me and my wife are both together we can slide these out hook them up top and then we can sleep north south instead of east west and it just gives us a lot more space which is very nice to hear that I am not a cuddler all right Josh what is an Overlander so overlaying is essentially when you travel like Overland in a vehicle and you sleep in the vehicle you don't stay in hotels generally you'll sleep on your vehicle so instead of driving and then like popping up a tent you you're completely self-contained self-sustainable you have everything that you need and you travel off-road somewhere and then we have we had our dinette which is great um has this tabletop that folds around enough seating well enough seating for two people probably my favorite feature of this entire camper in wintertime you fill it up on the outside and then this is your thermostat and you can turn it on and off and it runs off diesel fuel and it is crazy efficient and crazy warm we've had this camper to negative 20 degrees and it was a really warm like 75 degrees inside and we can make it hotter if we wanted to but it would have burned our eyeballs literally out of our head and then it leads us right to the back which is another cubby for more storage we um keep some of our like toiletries and then we just have a normal little toilet that we can use and then what I'm standing at right now is a shower space that you could use as a shower we haven't yet because it's a little tight I'm a little bit of a bigger guy and it's a little snug fit in here funny it's a very small package but it has a ton of really awesome features and being able to have it just right in the back of our truck and drive around wherever we want and just Camp has been absolutely phenomenal so does someone need all of this to get started absolutely not no you honestly just even if it's a park if you live in downtown New York you can just go to the park find Birds a lot of times birds are very plentiful if you really look for them if you live in a city foxes love cities you don't need to go out and go in these crazy Adventures or your backyard honestly I started with taking photos of squirrels and bunnies and all of this just comes later in life you don't need any of this I do it because these are the types of photos and videos I want to make and it's not right for everybody but just go out be in nature and enjoy it I really love the challenge of not disturbing the wildlife and being just almost like a fly on the wall situation so like with foxes I mean full camouflage I'm often in a hide I don't want to affect their normal everyday routines I don't want them to know I'm there because I want them to live their life exactly how they're supposed to live in and out with some humans sitting you know 10 feet away from them and then with the wildlife in like national parks it's very similar they're okay with you being there they're very used to it but you still have to respect their distances anytime you're going into the wild you're into their home and their territory and you have to know that you're a guest and they're just allowing you that time to be with them plus it's a safety concern especially in National Parks I think a lot of people don't realize that you can't get that close to animals and if anyone ever has a question about it when you get the little pamphlet and National Park it tells you how far away to stay from the animals you know Wildlife photography is very much the leave no Trace philosophy you wanna go out there and respect these animals and where they live you got to be quiet you gotta understand when they're active you also got to understand when they're going to be doing mating Seasons so that you're not interrupting any of that because all of these things can come into effect in winter time it's also really important to not like Chase animals so if you take a photo and it leaves don't go chasing it calories are very important to these animals and you don't want them to be expending any more than they really need to and it would put a strain on them and that goes for anything so deer Eagles Bears anything like that you need to respect them and understand that these are living animals also just making it so Community illness can be definitely hit or miss you know sometimes people can be really helpful and give you really great ideas on especially like equipment to buy places to go you know if you're taking good photos or not and it'll also be really toxic sometimes people think that they're the greatest wildlife photographer to ever live and if you're not doing doing exactly like them then you're doing something wrong or you're using the wrong equipment you just gotta be really careful and take what everyone says with a slight grain of salt because a lot of times they'll lead you down the wrong path and it's really important to find the people that support you believe in you and are willing to give you help Wildlife photography and photography in general is very subjective and there's no right or wrong way to take photos I personally edit mine a little bit darker and moodier and everything like that and a lot of other people will look at that and say that I'm doing it wrong I'm just doing it the way that I want my images to come out and it's important for you to find your own voice in your own photos how can people get in touch with you and find your awesome content so for me it's really easy I have a YouTube and Instagram and a tick tock and it's all the same just at Fox and fur fox and d f i r this has been awesome thank you so much Josh and any closing thoughts no I just want to say thanks so much for doing this and if anyone honestly has any questions at all feel free to reach out hit me up let me know if you have any questions on Wildlife or gear or my camper or anything like that awesome all right well I hope you found that useful or at least entertaining we'll see you later [Music] thank you