In short, Steven Dalton pioneered high-speed nature photography, revealing aspects of behaviour never before seen. And, although you could argue that there were others before him (Eric Hosking, for example) who used high-speed flash to arrest movement, no-one before or since Stephen Dalton has done it with such mastery. It was as much about aesthetics and authenticity (very tricky in a studio environment) as it was about getting it sharp and well composed. And this, was in the days of film!
Steven Dalton's hey-day was from the early 70s through to the mid 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 fungus, close-ups of moss, 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 The Secret Life of an Oakwood,
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 to ascertain exposure!). 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 doing so asked 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 as to how he obtained the image.
"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 ISOs 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.
