Capturing Wildlife

If you happen to catch a kid walking down the hallway with a really large camera trying to capture moving stills, good chances are that kid is Rue Stahl, Woodstock’s own up and coming photographer.

Two years ago, Rue’s grandfather started doing some amateur bird photography.

“Seeing him inspired me to start to use his camera and about a year later I asked for my own camera,” Rue says.

Rue's mom was also a wedding photographer for a while and that also inspired Rue to take up photography.

Rue particularly likes to focus on nature photography.

“I would say mostly wildlife, any kind of birds and animals. That's probably mostly because I'm the best at that.” One of his favorite photos he's ever taken was of a bird.

“When I first started out, I got very lucky. I caught this female red winged blackbird on a piece of straw kind of falling. It wasn't the clearest photo I had ever taken but it was the most memorable.”

Right as Rue was starting out, the COVID-19 pandemic hit us all, shattering our perspective of normal. Rue took this opportunity to be able to go out and photograph wildlife.

“I think it affected me in a good way. I feel like it's given me more opportunities to photograph wildlife.”

His advice for any upcoming photographers is to make sure you get a lot of practice.

“Before you get a big expensive camera try to learn the basics first, watch a YouTube video, take a class, but everything comes with practice of course.”

He would like to continue his career and head off to an art college in Boston for photography.

Rue now takes photos of the wildlife in the Woodstock Highschool hallways for our school newspaper, The Buzz.