To vacate

True vacations are a rarity these days. So much time in life is spent on plans, thoughts and how we can change the world. But the mind vacillates. It needs rest to operate and function.
For once I’m heading out into the unknown on my own. Well it’s not really the unknown, and it’s not the ocean, but it’s to a place where I know my mind can chill out and I can relax.
This image is what a holiday is to me- space, wildness and my best friends- all outdoors. Till next time…

Read more!

The final 30

You’ve seen the preview. Now here is the whole shebang.
30 images I took over 30 days.

One photo a day with no second chance. These are raw images straight from the camera. They show the imperfections of technique, the shutter pressed at the wrong time, the good compositions and the bad. But they also show the beauty of a moment in time- never to be captured again. I never gave myself the chance. The only chance to create the image was that one millisecond of the day. It puts your creativity on a threshold, balancing between safety or risqué.

If you could only take one photo a day, what would it be?

For what it is worth, these two are my favourite.

Read more!

Create 30 Project

If you could take only one photo a day, what would it be? Would you play it safe and shoot a still subject, or go for a difficult image of a fleeting moment in low light?
To push some personal creative boundaries and answer these questions for myself, I loaded my Nikon FM2 camera with ASA 400 speed black and white film, and armed with only a 50mm f1.4 lens as my view to the world, I took exactly one image a day with this camera for 30 days…

I focussed manually, set my exposure manually and put a lot of thought into each composition with the thought “is this the one image I want to take today?”.

Some I’m very happy with, some are just plain bad and some I pushed the shutter before I was ready- so technically they aren’t great at all.
But I’m putting all up here for you to see my window on the world over 30 days.
One photo a day, with only once chance to get it right.

This project has been an appreciable part of my personal creative process. It’s allowed me some great insight to my style, my personal photo philosophy and also explore outside of my comfort zone. The process here was more important than the result.

But the result is so good; it makes me yearn for more…

Here are a few of the shots, for now.

Read more!

The shot that nearly killed me

This article will do one of two things.

Either you will have been in a situation like these photographers before so you will know what it feels like to be one step away from death when working with a camera.

Or, like me, it will paint a picture of perspective about our profession. Reading this article I felt proud to be a photographer. These images show the power of photography in the human context- life and death scenarios. The third story from the bottom by Ron Haviv hit hardest for me; with the soldier kicking a family member he had just executed in ethnic cleansing. Later that image was used in trials to indict the propagator.

That’s an inspiration to me: Images capturing moments that can effect change in life. It puts a whole lot of perspective on what I do and inspires me to have the same impact on the conservation and wildlife side.
What’s your take on these types of images?


Read more!