My Photographic Highlight My photographic Highlight

My Photographic Highlight – What’s Yours?

My photographic highlight is special to myseld.As the year closes I took a moment to reflect back to see what would be the highlight of my photographic life. I encourage you to do the same. What would be your photographic highlight in your life? No matter how old you are, everyone would have a single moment or a series of events that would stick with them forever and a day.

There have been so many highlights over the course of my photographic life and right up there , there is Lake Eyre and Africa without any hesitation. I have chosen to highlight The Pelicans due to the isolation.Being out there in complete isolation for such a long time is something that I have no words to describe how that feels. Lake Eyre took place between 2008 and 2010.

It was simply insane to be alone with 50,000 pelicans documenting their life for that period of time. This was remote as it could ever get which suited me fine.

What also makes it extra special is that I know that I will never get this opportunity again. It was a massive challenge in getting to the location in the first place. It was extremely remote and the remoteness in itself was what gave the sense of total peace within myself.

There is so much that I could write about this time and the space is not available here but I will mention a few experiences. Wildlife is one of the hardest subjects to photograph as they are so unpredictable , you have to find them and carry your gear in the chase.It also helps if you learn their habits etc as this helps with taking the images.

In this case, I didn’t have to go look for the wildlife, it was there. After several days of them getting use to me, I was able to walk amongst them and they weren’t afraid of me. There are no words that could even come close to describe this moment.

This made the time of photographing them so enjoyable as I was accepted and there was never an issue I was an outsider.

Being there for that long, It was easy to study there habits and their routines.The way that my time panned was that was each day I could focus of one aspect of the pelicans. Once that goal was achieved, it was then onto the next goal and so on. I had a plan and I stuck to it.

Each morning the adults birds would go off in search of fish in the channel country and it appeared that one adult bird was left to watch over each section. That aspect of life really blew me away. The adult birds would make their way back around around 3 pm in the afternoon and they would glide in, hover and then drop down to their family of toddlers to feed. The thing is this, they all looked the same. with 50,000 birds how do you drop out of the sky to find your pair.I’m told they identify their young by there sound. To me they all sounded the same and yet they all have their individual sounds and it is from these sounds that the adult birds would drop from the sky and locate they own toddlers.

You may not know but the offical term for baby pelicans is toddler. Not sure who comes up with the names of young birds etc but maybe the word toddler fits as at a certain age, they waddle all over the place exploring and bugging their parents for food.

Being here for so long meant that I was able to photograph these wonderful birds in various stages of growing up. Seeing them so young almost straight from the eggs, you realise how vulnerable they are to predators that may be lurking not to far away.

I camped there in my swag and that itself was an experience as each morning when you got out of my swag to start the day, the smell of 50,000 pelicans would hit you like running into a brick wall.At the same time, although the smell of 50,000 pelicans was over powering at first, it wasn’t long before you got use to the smell .The cycle would repeat it self each day. Being amongst the birds made the smell fade to insignificance as being there was just so exhilarating photographing these wonderful birds in all stages of their lives. There was never a moment when I was tired of it.

There were toddlers that would venture up to my swag while I was in there and they would peck at it as to say ‘ Good morning’. I would unzip the swag and I would have several bills just looking straight at me. I will never forgot those moments.

On a sadder note any pelican who came to my camp site and there were quite a few, if they passed away I would burry them in the area. I know it is strange you might say as there were many pelicans out there , that perished over time .For me, when they came to the swag and for whatever reason, they would pass away, I just couldn’t leave them there.

I have been asked in the past was I ever lonely out there by myself and the answer is no. I had the company of 50,000 pelicans and there was never a time to feel alone.I was in my photo heaven.

How could you feel alone where you were somewhere in the middle of no where , where you were just accepted as you were.

As a photographer being in this situation was all consuming and what a privilege and highlight it was.I didn’t want each day to finish, I didn’t want the whole experience to finish as I knew I would never get to experience this ever again. Moments like this just don’t come around.

While I was there I endured all sorts of weather from ranging wind storms through to experiencing 100 ml of rain falling in a shot time. Everything around me was totalling wet and flooded. The ground was under water in a lot of places and driving out of here was impossible.In my case, I wasn’t moving anywhere and I had no intentions of getting out. I had unfinished work to do and by the time it was time to leave that area, the area had dried out. It took about 3 weeks for things to dry out and I had plenty of supplies on board see that time through.

It was also at this time where I was making the gradual transition from Nikon through to Canon. The main reason for doing so was that Canon had just released the Canon 5d mark 2 with video. At the time it was the state of art in the video circles for the DSLR. The video was so sharp, many wedding photographers has issues with it as it was so sharp that it was show up the imperfections on the brides skin.

I approached Nikon at the time to see if they were planning on releasing a camera with video in it and I was told no. After this trip, I made the switch and it was 18months later that Nikon bought a DSLR with video in it. Go figure that.I have been with Canon ever since and really have no reason to leave Canon as the technologies in this area are changing and growing all of the time.

Although this highlight took place sometime ago, what never changes is the cycle. The next epic flood of Lake Eyre will repeat all of the above which makes the images timeless . The real miracle in all of this is that scientists to this day really don’t know why when Lake Eyre floods that most of the pelicans leave the coastal areas to fly inland to this massive area to breed.

They have their theories as to why but really no concrete evidence as to why. The answer lies with the mystery of nature and the pelicans themselves.

If you love photography, if you love the Australian pelican and birds in general, then the entire experience has been put into a book.The link is below if you wish to buy this either for Christmas or down the track.