Wildlife Photography Shows Worth Watching

Whenever I get into a subject, I always look for shows that both entertain and teach the subject. Often it is difficult to find these shows, as I am a weirdo and often interested in odd things. For example, when I wanted to move off the grid and live a self-sustaining lifestyle, I found Escape to River Cottage, a brilliant show about an English cook who moves to the countryside and uses his cooking skills to earn some extra cash. So, when I started out in wildlife photography, I searched high and low for these types of shows.

Now that we have YouTube, there are many more videos on a plethora of subjects. Unfortunately, they are not always the highest quality. Therefore, I put together this short list of high-quality, educational, and entertaining shows for wildlife photographers.

Wild Photo Adventures

Wild Photo Adventures with Doug Garner is my favorite series on this list. Not only is it fairly amateur while still being high quality, which adds a bit of authenticity to it, but it is also clear that a ton of effort was put into it and Doug consistently created and uploaded episodes for quite a while. In this series, Doug not only goes out in the field and photographs wildlife, but he also uses each episode as a tool to teach a photographic lesson. The result is a high level of both entertainment and knowledge straight to your brain.

Tales by Light

This is an excellent show, produced by Netflix, that showcases different photographers in each episode or episode series. There are three seasons available at the moment, and I recommend every single episode. The newest season has a large focus on humanitarian missions involving photographers, and they are incredibly important. The episode I would recommend wildlife photographers checking out is Season 1, Episode 4 - “Wild” with Art Wolfe. There is some incredible wildlife photography of gorillas in there.

Meat Eater

I'm not a hunter, and If you are in any way against hunting, do not watch this show. However, I think wildlife photographers can learn a lot from hunters, and Meat Eater with Steven Rinella is the best hunting show ever created.

A Couple of YouTube Channels

There are two YouTube channels that stand out to me as consistently providing quality content that is both education and entertaining. These are the channels of wildlife photographers Tom Mason and Morten Hilmer. Both are excellent photographers with a lot of knowledge to share.

Edit: Virunga

I just watched Virunga on Netflix and as soon as it ended I knew I had to add it to this list. As wildlife photographers, we are trying to show the beauty of the wild world to people who are not able to get out and see it themselves. Many of us do this in part to promote conservation of wild animals and their habitats. This movie is a must see to remind ourselves what we are fighting for, and that the fight is worth it. The brave women and men in this movie put their lives on the line to protect Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and all of its wildlife, including the critically endangered Mountain Gorilla.

Do you know of any good wildlife photography shows, movies, or YouTube channels? Please let me know so I can check them out!