It goes without saying that you need to structure a talk, particularly if it is about a certain area but, I have to say, the one I enjoy most is that which I came up with after returning year upon year to the same clubs which were, as a result, rapidly exhausting my portfolio. The title I have given it is “Bob’s Best of the Year.” It does what is says on the tin. A selection of my favourite images taken over the last year (to 18 months!). It not only gives the audience something different every year but, from a personal perspective, it allows me the opportunity to review my own work taken over that period. As photographers we tend to go from one subject or project to another and rarely look back at what we have achieved and, dare I say it, even pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. Nothing wrong with a little self gratification!

Ultimately, it is the response of the audience either during or after that keeps me on the lecture circuit, particularly if members come up during the interval or afterwards to comment on how much they enjoyed it or to ask questions. As I said, at the beginning, I just love communicating and so, if after a talk, I have enthused or inspired a member of the audience to try their hand at a field of photography they hadn’t yet considered or made others think that actually, it’s not just a piece of marsh with sheep on it and that it REALLY is worth conserving, then I shall remain on that treadmill for many, many years to come. That is, if they sill want me! 

Below are just a few letters I have received over the years and, if you belong to a club and are on the lookout for a speaker, then why not get in touch.

On behalf of the Clacton Camera Club a very BIG THANK YOU for coming all this way and giving your lecture and showing so much of your work. I think and hope you could tell by the atmosphere, chatter and enthusiasm of your audience what an excellent evening you gave us. I am sure we will be talking about you and your images for many weeks to come. The evening seemed to go all too quickly, and we have had many phone calls thanking us for the evening, an evening which you made special.
Jean Pain, Programme Secretary, Clacton Camera Club

Many thanks for coming along yesterday and speaking to the Croydon Group both in the afternoon and evening. Your talk on Wildlife of the North Downs went down very well and your photographs were superb. I understand we had a record turnout for both meetings! I hope you had a safe journey home and look forward to inviting you back at a future date.
Judith Dunworth, Indoor Meetings Organizer, RSPB Croydon Local Group

I would like to thank you very much for such an interesting talk entitled ‘Field Techniques in Nature Photography’ and I know members were impressed with the amount of information received on wildlife, as well as all the various tips on taking such wonderful photographs. I particularly like the hares! Many members were enthused about the evening and I was very pleased with the turnout – one of the best.
Margaret Rimmer, Secretary, EPIC (Eynsford Photographic Image Club)

Steven Dalton’s hey-day was the 80s and 90s and although still practising his craft today, he is not, understandably, quite as prolific as he once was was. Saying that, however, he has recently returned to photographing insects in flight, largely due to the acquisition of a medium format Phase One digital back and an increased flash duration of 1/60,000 second! An exhibition in London is being planned for 2012.

Although he is the master of high-speed flash, there is another side to his work that had a profound influence (in my younger days) on my own. It was with the release of one of his best selling books The Secret Life of an Oakwood (1984). It revealed all aspects of nature within an oakwood and not just the obviously beautiful such as butterflies and birds. A snail crawling over fungi, a leaf in mid-winter covered in frost, rays of sunlight penetrating the canopy. I would, quite literally, study each image and enthused with what I had seen, go out into my own local woods and “try” to emulate. Of course, I never succeeded but he got me out there, looking for details, in all weathers. Other images, such as that of a dormouse, that required a controlled environment also urged me to try my hand at this kind of work. Two books followed in this series, At the Water’s Edge. The Secret Life of a Lake and Stream and The Secret Life of a Garden and, although they also contain some wonderful images, my personal favourite will always be his first.

In 1987 I had the great pleasure in meeting Stephen at his home in Sussex. At the time I was studying photography at Paddington College and, as part of the course work, we were asked to  speak with a photographer we most admired. So, I wrote to him and he kindly agreed to meet me. I wasn’t driving then so I had to catch a train then a taxi to his house, deep in the Sussex countryside. To say I was nervous, is a huge understatement, but with his calm and understated manner I soon relaxed and we chatted about photography. We pondered over medium format transparencies on his lightbox showing me Polaroids of a barn owl in flight (using a toilet roll as a barn owl substitute!). At the time he was working on a book called Vanishing Paradise and took me into his dining room where he had been photographing a hummingbird. There in this (very large) room was a huge set consisting of a pond and waterfall with authentic rainforest plants. A camera and 3 high-speed flash units were set up and when he turned on the tap to “activate” the waterfall, down came the hummingbird to bathe. Amazing stuff! I left in awe but just before, like some Take That fan, I got him to sign one of his books called Secret Lives.

Stephen has very kindly granted me permission to use this image of a barn owl returning to feed it’s young with a rat. It is one of his most iconic and I am sure you will agree that aside from the obvious, it is his mastery of light that sets this image apart from others. It was taken in the mid 70s and in order to get the lighting just right he made a scaled replica and experimented with lighting in his garden.The following is from an email I received from Stephen enquiring how he got the image.

Barn owl returning to nest. By Stephen Dalton

“The whole operation was very complicated and long-winded, before I developed all what was then considered sophisticated equipment, but by modern standards very crude. (1950′s  high voltage unit designed for press use, manual ‘open flash’ for the shutter, but at least I got the bird to fire the flash).  It took 2-3 weeks and I was perched high on top of a roof with a wild bees nest at my elbow.  The full story can be found in ‘Caught in Motion’ published 1982.

 The photograph was taken on a 1969 Leicaflex SL with standard lens set at full aperture (f2.8) on 25 ASA Kodachrome (with a wait of a week before the results could be checked!) 

 Nowadays we have the facilities of instant digital and ‘films’ 30,000 times faster than Kodachrome, and the use of off-the shelf flash guns that provide the necessary speed. That’s progress!”

Rarely, these days, do you see images of barn owls taken with flash. The advancement of digital cameras, cropped sensors and high iso’s inclines nature photographers away from nest work and shoot using available light. Indeed, there are some fantastic images of these birds on the web, (often hunting low over a reedbed) but, in my opinion, they do all tend to look the same. You will gaze over one image to another but this one, this one has and will stand the test of time.

Whoever correctly guesses who is at number 1, either on this blog or facebook, will receive a copy of Hannu Hautala’s acclaimed book, To Everything a Season. A year in the Finnish wilds, of which I have two copies. I’ll even stump up the P&P! Sorry, UK only.   

Below is how I bagan the piece….

Those of us that have been taking photographs for some time will have undoubtedly been influenced by those we have admired. Certainly I have! I started taking wildlife photographs 27 years ago at the age of 13 and seriously from 16 at a time when we weren’t bombarded with imagery found on the Internet. My influences came from those around me and those credited with images gracing coffee table books and magazines such as BBC Wildlife and National Geographic. 

From a very early age I would tag-along with a great friend of mine, called Ted Coleman who was 40 years my senior. He was a quite brilliant naturalist and no mean wildlife photographer, to boot! I would find myself trying desperately to emulate his style and quality (very poorly, I have to say) but as I grew older and saw other photographers’ work, I began to follow my own inclinations and would attempt to record what I saw in a more artistic manner. Ted, in his rural, gravelly voice would call this “arty-farty”! I couldn’t disagree. He was right! You see, this was the early 1980s and ”artistic” natural history photography wasn’t at all common, at least not in the UK. By and large, photographers would record what they saw as opposed to putting their own personal “stamp” on it. However, there were a number in that period that started to do just that and over the coming weeks, I’ll be going through those, in ascending order, that have influenced my own work the most.

I won’t be including Ted in this as I don’t feel as though I need to state how much he influenced my work, particularly in those early days. Indeed, as time went by and we returned from trips together, to Wales and Finland for example, many an evening would be spent projecting our images and seeing just how different our styles had become. One thing never changed though and that was an ethic he had instilled in me all those years ago. “That no matter how badly you want that picture or how hard you have worked to get close, the subject’s well-being must always come first.”

5 – Hannu Hautala

The top 5 nature photographers that have most influenced my work starts with Finnish wildlife photographer, Hannu Hautala. I toyed with placing him further up the list but those that will follow have had a more sustained influence on my work, particularly in the early days.

Hannu Hautala is undoubtedly the most famous Finnish photographer. So much so, that he is, or at least was, regularly shown on TV, advertising products, something which, unless David Bailey ever became a wildlife photographer, I very much doubt you will ever see in Britain!

He was one of the first to place the subject, be it a bird or mammal, small in the frame. To put it in context with it’s environment. This was done with thought and not by mistake. Before him, pictures of birds and animals were almost always big in the frame and if the photographer couldn’t get close enough, then just “clumsily” snapped. From the 1990s onwards this “style” became a trademark of Finnish wildlife photography.

4 – Laurie Campbell

Laurie Campbell was once described by wildlife film-maker, Simon king, “as the doyen of Scottish nature photography.” Who could argue? Laurie Campbell in so many ways epitomises how a nature photographer should behave. In other words, he conducts himself in such a way that rather than talking a good picture, he lets his pictures speak for themselves. An incredibly knowledgeable naturalist (unfortunately, an increasingly rare trait in a nature photographer these days), Laurie is a great all-rounder. Equally as good shooting birds and mammals as he is landscapes, plants and insects.

He has a style of that goes beyond the ordinary. Careful use of light and viewpoint. Indeed, I would go as far to say that Laurie was one of the first British photographers to adopt the “low-angle” approach when shooting wildlife, something that is the norm these days.

3 – Frans Lanting

Frans Lanting is regularly hailed as one of the great nature photographers of our time and, when it comes to nature photography, I cannot disagree.

I first became aware of his work back in 1987 after purchasing a copy of National Geographic which ran a story of his titled “Madagascar: A World Apart.” Very little was known of this island back then and he even photographed a species of lemur which hadn’t yet been named! Three years later he had another, this time on the Okavango Delta in Botswana. He spent a year living in the region photographing elephants, eagle and hippos. He would sleep during the day and follow a pride of lions at night, lay under camo netting close to a waterhole where lions would pass by just yards away, too intent on quenching their thirst to take any notice. It was these images that really brought him into prominence and which led to him being awarded BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

2 – John Shaw

The final 2! John Shaw made the complexities of photographing nature, possible. This may seem like a sweeping statement but in the early and mid 80s there was a kind of secrecy behind photographing wildlife by many leading nature photographers incase others produced similar “competing” work. It’s ridiculous when you think of it, especially now when “How to” photography books fill up book stands at your local Waterstones. But back then when it was all about transparency and getting it right first time, such things as exposure, filtration, camera supports and the most important element, technique were not extensively covered at all. John Shaw changed all that.

Aside from his methods and explanations, I adored his images. Simple, graphic lines. His landscape images are rarely complicated and some of his most memorable, at least for me, are as simple as a tree at sunset or a frost covered leaf. It wasn’t necessarily about the subject but the subject’s placement within the frame. Here is clearly a man equally at home shooting dew laden grasses as he is bison in Yellowstone. He explains, strong images are very much about making sense of nature’s chaos. Deciding what it is that you like about that scene and leaving out what detracts from it.

Grey seal, photographed at Donna Nook almost 20 years ago.

In an older blog post here I talked about how I was pretty much the only person there throughout my stay. I haven’t been back since and, quite frankly, I have no intention in doing so since it would only ruin a perfect memory.

So, how do we stop groups of photographers flouting the LWT’s request to stay behind the fence? Simple, don’t attend group workshops organised and led by those who will. In other words, all photographers that advertise seal photography workshops here since it is HIGHLY unlikely that, given the money that has been exchanged, that they would remain behind the fence as opposed to trudging off across the beach. I would personally like to see permit-only access where, each year, a lottery based permit system is drawn up where, for a fee, a certain amount of photographers/public are permitted to walk across the beach to the main seal colony. The money could then be put into the LWT’s pot. This would be beneficial to all concerned, not least the seals!

There’s not an awful lot to be found on John Shaw on the Internet. When he was born, early career etc, other than the following which speaks volumes in terms of how he is regarded, not just in his native country of the US but the world over. He was the first ever recipient of the Outstanding Photographer Award given by NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association), Featured Legend Behind the Lens by Nikon and was Microsoft’s designated Icon of Imaging in 2006.

Influence

The above mentioned book was first published in 1984 but I didn’t get my hands on one until 1990. I couldn’t put it down and think I may have read it cover to cover more times than I can remember. It was fresh, straightforward, no-nonsense advice. A book filled with invaluable tips and lavish photography. His methodical approach worked very well with me as I would always, with nearly each picture I took, write in a notebook, the camera settings  and where I got my exposure from and how far I bracketed. It was the best way I knew how of learning. If exposures were off, I could refer to my notes and see where I went wrong. Of course, you just need to look at the picture’s EXIF data these days but it did instill a rather perfectionist attitude which I have tried to maintain. Mostly through my dislike of spending any more time than I need to infront of the computer!

Aside from his methods and explanations, I adored his images. Simple, graphic lines. His landscape images are rarely complicated and some of his most memorable, at least for me, are as simple as a tree at sunset or a frost covered leaf. It wasn’t necessarily about the subject but the subjects placement within the frame. Here is clearly a man equally at home shooting dew laden grasses as he is bison in Yellowstone. He explains, strong images are very much about making sense of nature’s chaos. Deciding what it is that you like about that scene and leaving out what detracts from it.

Born in Rotterdam in 1951, Frans Lanting, after earning a Master’s Degree in Environmental Economics, enrolled on a post-graduate programme in Environmental Planning at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He left after 2 years to fulfill his passion of wildlife photography. Since then he has produced numerous stories for National Geographic magazine, as well as illustrating and co-authoring some of the finest books on wildlife ever produced. At least, in my humble opinion. He is a founding director of the NANPA (North American Nature Photography Association) and, extraordinarily for a nature photographer, serves on the board of the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund. He has been the recipient of the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year award and received top honours in the 88 and 89 World Press Photo competition and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands inducted him as a Knight in the Royal Order of the Golden Ark, that country’s highest conservation honor. Those books which he has produced include Okavango, The Forgotten Ape, Living Planet, Madagascar: A World Out of Time and Life: A Journey Through Time. I own just one: Eye to Eye. A beautifully produced lavish, coffee table book that illustrates perfectly his skills as a nature photographer. The New Yorker once wrote “No one turns animals into art more completely than Frans Lanting.” 

EYE TO EYE by Frans Lanting

Influence

I first became aware of his work back in 1987 after purchasing a copy of National Geographic which ran a story of his titled “Madagascar: A World Apart.” Very little was known of this island back then and he even photographed a species of lemur which hadn’t yet been named! Three years later he had another, this time on the Okavango Delta in Botswana. He spent a year living in the region photographing elephants, eagle and hippos. He would sleep during the day and follow a pride of lions at night, lay under camo neeting close to a waterhole where lions would pass by just yards away, too intent on quenching their thirst to take any notice. It was these images that really brought him into prominanace and which led to him being awarded BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year. This is really where his influence on me began. He had a different take on wildlife photography and used techniques which were rarely seen before, most notably, mixing flash with daylight. This practise is now used quite often by some and I can tell you, it’s a a darn sight easier with digital that it was with film! With the latter, you first had to run a series of tests then wait for the processed film to view them. Nowadays, you can just shoot and change settings as you go. Infinitely easier, requiring less calculations. Frans produced some beautiful images this way and one which sticks in my mind is of an eagle coming in to take a fish from a pool on the Delta where the background has this streaky, blurry quality and yet the bird remains sharp. It seemed to emphasise the power and speed of the eagle more effectively than if it were taken using just daylight. He also freely used wide-angle lenses up close to show the animal in it’s environment. Again, this technique was shown in his Okavango piece illustrating a bull frog in a pond where he used an 18mm to exaggerate it’s size but also to link the frog to the pool. It’s 21 years old now but it’s a timeless image. I still have these editions and look through them from time to time.

If there is one photographer that a beginning or, for that matter, experienced photographer should study and learn from, it is Frans Lanting. Visit his site here to see examples of his breathtaking imagery and where, if you can afford it, purchase a print.

From what I know of him, either through the occasional documentary or article, Laurie Campbell is a quiet, reserved man. Certainly not a flamboyant character but one that seems ideally suited to spending long periods out of doors, on his own.  An observant and practical individual who has built stone hides to photograph golden eagles or tree-hides to shoot nesting herons. Chris Packham once said of Laurie “that he is a man, impervious to temperature extremes.” A very useful characteristic, I would say, if you concentrate almost exclusively on Scottish wildlife!

Laurie Campbell was born in 1958 and studied photography at Napier University in Edinburgh from 1977-1981. He has the largest collection of Scottish nature photographs by a single photographer, amounting to over 140,000 images and was the first in Scotland to make a living from wildlife photography. He has authored a number of books and illustrated many which include, The Wildlife Photographs of Laurie Campbell, The RSPB Guide to Bird and Nature Photography, Badgers, Wild Scotland and Golden Eagle. For the latter, he dedicated 6 years covering the life history of this magnificent bird, often spending days in hides on remote Scottish hillsides. Represented by some of the world’s leading image libraries, including Getty, Laurie has received a staggering 26 awards in the prestigious BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. A testament to the consistent high standard of his work.  

He has a style of that goes beyond the ordinary. Careful use of light and viewpoint. Indeed, I would go as far to say that Laurie was one of the first British photographers to adopt the “low-angle” approach when shooting wildlife, something that is the norm these days. Laurie Campbell has influenced so many photographers and just from this text, you can see why. His superb images of river otters can be seen as a feature length spread in the latest issue of BBC Wildlife magazine but if you want to see more of his work, visit his website here.

Hannu Hautala is undoubtedly the most famous Finnish photographer. So much so, that he is, or at least was, regularly shown on TV, advertising products, something which, unless David Bailey ever became a wildlife photographer, I very much doubt you will ever see in Britain!

Born in 1940 in Toysa, Hannu first came to prominence in 1970 when he won a six month arts grant and from then on became a full-time photographer. Always an out-doors person, Hannu became frustrated with life in Helsinki and after much searching, finally settled, in 1979, with his wife, in Kuusamo. Here he found everything he needed for his work. Kuusamo is indeed a very special place where northern, eastern and southern species meet and due to the calcareous soil, rare flowers are found. Speaking personally, I visited this area some years ago and over just a few days I could see why he chose here. Haanu has been widely recognised for his work including, in 1992, becoming a Knight of the Order of the White Rose of Finland. He has produced many books with my own personal favourite being To Everything a Season. A Year in the Finnish Wilds. This book beautifully portrays why he is up there with the very best. He has an artist’s eye and uses the subtleties of nature’s colour as a painter would with a brush.  

Influence

I first became fascinated with Finnish wildlife back in 1986, while studying photography in London. I remember, vividly, travelling on the number 36 bus from Paddington to Victoria, reading a copy of BBC Wildlife magazine (I still have that copy) and looking in admiration at photographs depicting Finnish Lapland in winter. Here was a place, not a million miles away, that still had wilderness with a landscape, flora and fauna that was almost otherworldly with remote bogs, fells, birch and spruce forest, bears, wolves and owls and the photographer whose work struck me more than any other was Hannu Hautala’s.

He was one of the first to place the subject, be it a bird or mammal, small in the frame. To put it in context with it’s environment. This was done with thought and not by mistake. Before him, pictures of birds and animals were almost always big in the frame and if the photographer couldn’t get close enough, then just “clumsily” snapped. From the 1990s onwards this “style” became a trademark of Finnish wildlife photography. I guess you could say they have both the light and landscape to do so since this style is not easy to emulate in less spacious, more populated areas. Hannu put the art into nature photography and many years on you can clearly see the influence he has had on the work of photographers the world over. To read more about Hannu Hautala, click here which will take you to his Nature Photography Centre.