Photography is the only constant I have in my life,
and therefore I can take that all around the world.
It's the art of what I do that keeps me who I am.
As a photographer I need to rely on my equipment.
I just want to focus on being in the moment,
getting that moment and taking that home.
I love travel.
When you've been exposed to these farfetched destinations
and different cultures, it opens your mind up.
To document that and capture that
and bring that home is a luxury.
Having the right equipment is everything.
I need something compact, lightweight, something I
can condense in my backpack and reach for very easily.
The payoff of putting myself into far flung destinations
is that moment that comes rarely, but I do get,
with that one-to-one interaction with wildlife.
There's a silence that surrounds you.
If you have that energy and you get that stillness, if you
give that unthreatening presence, they will give you that shot.
I like to gain knowledge and understand a
person, so when I take a portrait, I'm already
analysing them before I've even said hello.
I'm looking at the movements, the way they present themselves,
where their smile comes into place, how they carry themselves.
Using a zoom lens was very new to me because I
really haven't done for some while so, working
with the R6 and the 70-200mm F4, it felt right.
The lens felt intuitive.
For me, the 70-200mm F4 is a great lens to
use if you're wanting to build stories, and
that's what I love so much about this lens.
You can pull it back to 70mm and get that beautiful portrait,
or you can get back out to 200mm and get that more cinematic
look as if you would on a prime, so it really gave me a
whole array of shots I wouldn't necessarily have got before.
When we were out on the sail ship, I had seals popping
up on my right, I had the corncrakes on the cliff.
I don't want to be swapping lenses out in a sea environment.
The 70-200mm F4 enables you to get the full
story and not just parts of it, and I came away
with the best shots and feeling extremely happy.
When I was hiking to try and find the otters, there was some
slight drizzle and light cloud, and it was drizzling for a
couple of hours, and no, it didn't stop me from shooting at all.
It was like it was never even there.
It's easy to keep pushing through, and
challenging shots and challenging weather
conditions and keeping focus on getting the shot.
Being presented with an F4 was going to challenge me slightly
in not really the style of shooting that was my go-to.
I don't know what happened, but it didn't feel like an F4.
Working with this lens and working with this
aperture, it didn't compromise my shots.
Working in low light conditions, it didn't compromise my shots.
The cinematic feel to the lens was absolutely beautiful.
So the F4 with the 70-200mm, that's a marriage,
that combination works for me perfectly.
I actually saw an otter swimming
just closer to shore than usual.
I just sprinted across the rocks and just
dived down just before the ocean level.
I actually had one hand on the rockery as I was suspended,
going down into the ocean and I could hold the 70-200mm with
one hand, keep it stable, at the same time keeping myself really
still, and then capturing that shot of the otter coming up.
Normally at that time, my arm would be aching or I'd
have to bring my other hand in to support the lens, but
shooting with such a lightweight lens, I didn't need to
do that, and I don't think I would have got that shot
otherwise, I think it would have been really challenging.
The 70-200mm F4 has provided me with
an array of shooting opportunities.
The spontaneous moments that present themselves are
normally the gold shots, normally those moments which are
so candid and unexpected, they're the ones I come home with.
The purpose of this trip was to go on a journey to bring back a
story, to experience everything, the people, the landscapes, the
wildlife, it's everything, and the lens enabled me to do that.
And leaving's a little sad, but there will be another adventure.