How a Pingree Grove photographer gets up close and personal with wildlife

Good wildlife photography takes patience and time, according to Dennis Houghton.

A photographer since he was 10 years old, in the 1960s, Houghton has experience with both.

Most people have never had the up-close and personal experiences he has had with wildlife because “they don’t have the time or take the time. They can’t get as close to something as I can with my camera, either,” the retired photographer and videographer said.

Houghton, of Pingree Grove, has created a 60-minute video of some of the wildlife images he’s captured in northern Illinois over the past few years. He will present that film from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16, at Shepherd of the Prairie Lutheran Church, 10805 Main St. in Huntley. The event is free and open to the public, but registration is requested on the church website, www.shepherdoftheprairie.com.

“Dennis is our resident photographer at the church who has just a wealth of experience in photography in private and the public realm as well,” the Rev. Mark Boster said.

His skill, Boster said, was in “the beauty of nature as expressed in his photography.”

Houghton has spent more than six decades honing his skill as a photographer, videographer, cinematographer and sound editor. He started his professional career as a 20-year-old in 1970, putting sound into film where there was none for “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.”

“I had one of those life-changing choices,” Houghton said, having to choose between finishing his degree at Columbia College in Chicago or taking a job as a sound editor. He went with the job.

Produced in Chicago, “the show did not have a sound recording person on its shoots” in the field when he was hired. “They were in the middle of a swamp and no one there recording Marlin Perkins or his sidekick,” Houghton said.

He and others in the sound department would watch the developed film and record sound effects to match it. Things like wading through a child’s pool in the studio to mimic the sound of walking through a swamp or walking across rolls of old film spread out on the floor to sound like walking through tall grass, Houghton said.

The experiences he gained from that job, where he stayed for 2 1/2 years, led Houghton to start two production companies – Treeflower Films and later, when technology changed from film to video, Finishline Video.

“It is the eyes and the brain, the creativity – the anticipation of what may happen next.”

—  Wildlife photographer Dennis Houghton

When Houghton started in the motion picture industry, it was all done on film, before videotape was common. Now, at age 72, he is using programs on his computer to edit video and still shots.

Back when he was working on “Wild Kingdom,” the technology was far different, he said.

“It was kind of archaic. Now I am sitting in front of multiple computers, I have video editing software that edits in 4K” high-definition digital video, Houghton said. “The editing software is out of this world. All the effects, I can do with a push of a button.”

But all the software in the world can’t fix the experience and patience needed to get a great shot in the wild, he said.

“It is the eyes and the brain, the creativity – the anticipation of what may happen next,” Houghton said.

When a photographer knows the species well – be it a white egret or a blue heron – he or she will be ready for it to take to the sky for that shot, he said. “It is a lot of study, time spend, and a lot of patience.”

It can also, at times, get a little scary.

While he’s never come upon a bear or another predator, he has seen cougar tracks in northern Illinois. He also recalls the time an osprey, protecting its nest, dived at him.

“All of the sudden she was out of focus, coming right at me,” Houghton said. He made a split-second choice, tucked his lens against his body, and “hit the ground sideways. I could feel her wings flying past me. It was unprovoked, but I was on their land.”