New Talk Subject - Focusing On Wildlife
10th February 2023
Talks have been amongst the services, which I have provided for a long time, and over time the list off available topics has extended. While I initially focused more on telling people about the different big cat species and their problems in the wild, I have added one talk a few years ago, which goes more into my photography and special moments, which I have had with animals "Stories Behind My Photos".
This year, I have added another talk, which is more about photography, though animal welfare and even conservation does come into it as well. Some of my customers, readers and followers, will have been aware that photography is for me not so much about a fascination with camera settings and other technical features on digital SLR cameras, and I neither take photos to create an artistic representation of my subjects. Even when I was just out travelling and enjoying seeing different countries, landscapes and animals, photography was always about the subject; what caught my eye and what impressions, I found would be worth sharing.
Since I went into photography on a professional level (earning an income through this), my fascination for wildlife has increased drastically. I always liked looking at and watching different species, and especially my favourite species of them all, the leopard. And right from the beginning of my professional photography career when I had the privilege to photograph an African leopardess and her two cubs in their natural habitat in South Africa, focusing on wildlife got a different meaning for me.
When I was out there in South Africa, I wanted of course to get some amazing images of the leopards, but I wanted to learn more about these beautiful animals, their behaviours and habits. My plan to come to the site, where the leopardess and her cubs were resting at a time nobody else was there, and switching off the car engine, worked well. We stayed for 30 minutes and I got quite a few images of the leopards through observing them and pressing the shutter at the right moments.
Getting amazing images; action or character photos is depending of course to some extent on taking the photo with out moving the camera and having the focus point on the subject, opening the aperture to the correct level (blurring out the fore- and background or getting mutiple animals sharp in focus) and opening and closing the shutter with the most appropriate speed freezing the action or showing movements through a motion blur). However, a key point is when you press the shutter.
This means, taking photos of animals is not only about knowing what settings to use, but about observing the animals, being able to anticipate what the animals may do next and being ready when action is starting or animals might just look up to the sky or out for any potential dangers around them. My new talk "Focusing on Wildlife" is about all of the aspects, which are important to take a good image of wildlife without endangering the animal/s and/or yourself.
In this talk, I will share how I approach wildlife photography in natural habitat areas as well as at zoos and wildlife parks plus recommendations on what to do besides setting the cameras up and click the shutter. There will be of course some of my photos of big cats and other wildlife, which I have taken over the last 15 years (while taking photos professionally). Furthermore, I will also share with the audience, what I utilise my photos for, and this goes into raising awareness for problems, animals face in their natural habitat and supporting wildlife conservation (which is still one of my key business objectives, although my freelance photography business is no longer run on a not-for-profit basis. This ended unfortunately, for now at least due to the financial impact the COVID situation as well as the increasing travel expenses and material costs had). I may still have a collection box out for one of the wildlife conservation groups, which I support.
If you are interested in booking me to provide my new talk 'Focusing on Wildlife' or any of the other Talk Topics, please just send me an e-mail at info@bigcatphotography.co.uk.