You can take great photos with your smartphone – as long as you remember two things: The smartphone is for internet use only. The quality is not adequate for print, unless it’s postcard size or smaller. This is due the the small format, i.e., the sensor in the iPhone is smaller than your little fingernail. Others may argue that you … Read More
Behind the scenes on this month’s magazine feature
This week I’m taking you behind the scenes of my current published assignment for Australian Geographic. It’s only a short feature and you can see it in the November December 2016 issue called “Raptor rehab”. Here are some notes as to how and why I shot some of the pics. I was allowed very limited access to these injured birds of … Read More
Judging The Nature Conservancy Photo Competition 2016
Nature Conservancy Australia contacted me in June to see if I’d be interested in being a judge for this year’s Nature Photo Competition. Of course I would! I’ve admired the work of the Nature Conservancy in the US for years. They also spread their activities around the globe and have successfully protected over 48 million hectares of land and thousands of … Read More
5x Growth – a Conservation Success Story
Several years ago, I partnered up with science writer Karen McGee to produce a feature on Gould’s Petrel for the UK magazine, Geographical. Most stories of endangered species I find confronting, but this one turned out to have a happy ending. Gould’s Petrel nests almost exclusively on a tiny bunch of rocks off the coast of New South Wales. One of them is … Read More
A quick lesson in quick lighting
What makes this family “portrait” so pleasing? No, it’s not the fact that it’s my family – my sister and nephews. It’s the lighting. My sister has taken this “selfie” while keeping in mind all the rules of a good photo: 1. Tight cropping. She’s not afraid to even chop a bit off one of the heads. There is still … Read More
Don’t frame too tight
Sometimes, when I’ve been judging photo competitons, I’ve had to evaluate an image where the subject in the photo is wedged so tight in the frame that you get an uncomfortable feeling looking at it. When I’ve commented that “there’s no room to breathe” the photographer usually rebuts me by saying “but I’ve been criticised in the past for not cropping tight enough!” … Read More
Happy Feather’s Day!
Here’s something to make all fathers think. Be thankful you weren’t born an emu. Your lot in life would have been tending all the eggs – a dozen or more at a time (some even fertilised by rival males!) – no time to lubricate your parched throat and you would suffer dramatic weight loss. And it doesn’t stop there – you’d be tending … Read More
Mating Madness
You’ve all heard about the rampaging Cane Toads, right? How for the first few decades after introduction they stayed in Queensland? Then suddenly, say about the year 2000, they spread. Like the plague. They even hit the Kimberley in the west and Sydney in the south. One reason they are so rampant in their reproduction success is that they like … Read More
A Powerful Story (or The One That Got Away)
As a nature and wildlife photographer I’m outdoors a lot and I often get into scrapes. They make entertaining stories to share on blogs and elsewhere. One time, however, it was my photographic subject that got into one – or almost. I was walking home one cool August night, in the quiet seaside village of Pearl Beach where I used … Read More
The Owl Hunters: Behind the Scenes of an Australian Geographic Assignment
Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of a wildlife photo? When I’m on an assignment to photograph wildlife, I often collaborate with scientists who are doing field research. I work hard to get my shots but sometimes these scientists have to get pretty creative themselves to accomplish their job. When I was asked to do a story … Read More