Opportunistic Photography
New friends from the aptly named Kangaroo Island, South Australia
Recently my wife and I spent some time in Australia - visiting a family member and taking some holiday time. These trips are great from a holiday perspective, but frustrating form a photography point of view. I am in a country with an abundance of wildlife and beautiful nature, and I cannot focus 100% on it …. I have to steal my moments.
The Blue Mountains, New South Wales, is a truly stunning natural landscape
This type of trip means a compromise in photography kit, and it has clear limitations in what can be achieved and the ambition I set for my photography. It rarely allows me repeat visits to a location or to learn and understand local wildlife behaviour. Time is a limiting factor which is also a challenge and reduces the opportunity to optimise images of wildlife.
Koalas on Kangaroo Island. Sadly an estimated 60,000 Koalas perished in the extensive wildfires of 2019/20.
Kit wise I travelled ‘light’ – one body (the Nikon Z8) and my trusted 500mm travel marvel (the Nikon 500mm PF). A lens perfect for this type of photography … it is light and mobile and can be held in my hands for long nature walks.
The western part of Kangaroo Island was devastated in the 2019/20 wildfires … but gradually the landscape is re-building itself
Luckily my wife enjoys walking in nature, but she’s a speed walker, and has little time for the stop start approach required to allow for some opportunistic photography. We often split up and I’m given a time to get back to a planned rendezvous … that’s my opportunity … my daily moment to see what my trusted 500mm lens can help me catch.
It can be highly frustrating but also rewarding. The frustration is that I only have literally one shot at getting an image of a bird species or other animal. Optimising position, light, time of day is highly compromised. Often the wildlife - particularly birds - are high up - against the sky, in a messy cluster of green, blue, branches … and getting into position for a good shot is tricky … against the clock before ‘holidaying’ has to resume.
Tropical Rockmaster Dragonfly - Queensland
Here’s an example: The Cassowary is an endangered huge flightless bird which reside in northeastern Australia and New Guinea. It is a fascinating rare bird which can grow to 6 feet tall with a pre-historic look and a deadly kick. It is a dream to be able to photograph it. We were only spending one day of the holiday in its natural habitat - the Daintree National Park - with a guide to take us trekking through the forest. I knew of this exciting creature, but didn’t even approach the subject with the guide as our trip would be focused on other holiday activities including a long walk, lunch and a crocodile spotting river trip. I knew the chance of coming across one was near nil and to photograph one even less, as these birds are solitary and reside in dense tropical rain forests.
Then, when we were driving up the road into the rainforest the guide suddenly braked, put the car in reverse and drove backwards 100 yards. He pointed into the rain forest … and there it was. A male Cassowary. We slowly jumped out of the car at a respectful distance, and I got a few quick shots away. But, just when I was getting my bearings and started to assess better viewpoints, a camper van appeared and stopped next to us. Out came an over-excited young German coupe with a small lens camera. They ran across to the Cassowary shouting to try to get a photo …. needless to say the bird scampered … disappeared into the dense jungle …. I could have screamed. That was my one chance of photographing this magnificence bird. One day, one trip … I’m unlikely to ever come back to this part of the world.
A missed opportunity: The ‘snapshot’ of the fabulous pre-historic looking flightless Cassowary - a bird that can grow 6 feet tall with a deadly kick
I did get a shot, but nothing great … not even close to a good image, but at least it is enough to identify the bird. That is the problem with opportunistic photography … it is highly frustrating … so close to being able to get a good shot, but not enough time, patience, preparation, local input and guidance and repeat visits to optimise the opportunity. That frustration is hard to get out of my head … I was there but I didn’t do it justice from a wildlife photography perspective - a missed opportunity. On the other hand, I saw a rare and beautiful bird and had the opportunity to visit a stunning part of the world.
A little Joey - nicely tucked away
Australia is truly beautiful with an abundance of wilderness and over 600 National Parks. Coming from Europe, the wildlife is rather impressive and somewhat different. I was in awe of the huge Fruit Bats – also known as Flying Foxes. These megabats are among the largest in the world with a wingspan of 5 feet! An incredible species I had never seen before. Ditto, the Koala and the Kangaroo. When you see them for the first time it is strangely weird and wonderful. It is incredible to think that 60,000 of Australia’s Koalas perished in the fires of 2019/20 together with around 3 billion animals. But thankfully the wildlife is recovering gradually as the habitat re-builds itself.
A remarkable megabat - the Grey-headed Flying Fox with a 5 feet wingspan
A flying Flying Fox or Fruit Bat which they’re also called
The Australian birdlife is also equally impressive with a total of over 850 different species on the Australian continent, of which almost half are not found anywhere else. I will focus on the birds of Australia in a separate blog.
A Little Corella of the Cookatoo family of birds - look out for many more Australian bird pictures in my next blog
The Upside-Down Family
Three weeks of opportunistic photography in the South, the East and the Northeast of Australia only allowed me to scratch the surface of wildlife in this fabulous and enormous country. I would dearly love to go back for a more focused photo trip. It has so much to offer … and maybe I could even get a second chance at photographing the Cassowary!
A snoozy Sea Lion on Kangaroo Island - The Australian Sea Lion is a rare and endangered species
An Eastern Water Dragon - The Blue Mountains, New South Wales
A Willie Wagtail catching a lift
The size of the Flying Foxes is quite incredible