Welcome to the sixth edition of the Photography>Animals, Plants & Nature Professional Series!

Today's interview is being done with a photographer who some of you may have very well heard of, he and his younger brother, Matthew, have been making waves all over the nature photography world the last couple of years now. They are very much a rising superstar within the nature photography community and world, gaining high praise and a lot of recognition, not to mention turning heads all over the place.

So without any delay, I would like to introduce you all to Will Burrard-Lucas

Feel free to ask Will any questions you might have about nature photography, his comments within the article here, tips, techniques, etc. After all, the goal of the APN Professional Series is to bring the best that there is closer to YOU all so you can learn, ask questions from the best in nature photography today!

You can read the other APN Professional Interview Series News Articles here:

"APN Interview w/Guy Tal, pro Nature Photographer" here [link]
"APN Interview w/Judd Patterson, pro Nature Photographer" here [link]
"APN Interview w/Joshua Hardin, pro Nature Photographer" here [link]
"APN Interview w/Greg Schneider, pro Nature Photographer" here [link]
"APN Interview w/Richard Bernabe, pro Nature Photographer" here [link]


Now on with the interview!


kkart: First off I really wish to thank Will for doing this interview with me. I can't say enough how much I appreciate it. My goal as the Gallery Moderator for Photography>Animals, Plants, & Nature is to bring some of the very best photographers to deviantART so others can learn and be inspired, and you Will honestly fit this bill perfectly! Thank you so much for your willingness to do this and to give others insight on your work and techniques.

Will:Thank you very much. It is an honour to be featured on this fantastic website!



kkart: Will, can you tell us all how you got started in nature & travel photography and how it all came to be? What made you decide to pick up a camera and run with it? What was the point you realized that photography was for you and how did it come about?

Will: I have always travelled a lot and it was natural that I wanted to take pictures of the places I visited. I got my first film camera in 2001 but, despite my enthusiastic attempts, I would come back from a trip and feel slightly disappointed when I got the pictures developed.

I got my first digital camera a couple of years later and that was when I really started to get into photography. People take it for granted these days, but being able to see a photo on the back of your camera straight after you have taken it makes a huge difference; it means that you can keep photographing a subject until you get it right and through a process of experimentation, trial and error you can learn so much faster than in the old days.

A few of my favourite travel photos:



After a couple of years of general travel photography, I began upgrading my gear and my reasons for travelling started to revolve around photography more than anything else. I have always been passionate about wildlife and naturally I tended towards this in my travelling and my photography. The majority of my trips are now exclusively for the purpose of wildlife photography.

kkart: So the almighty question! What is your camera bag and what is it you simply can't live without? Is there anything unusual? What do you usually take with you when you go out shooting; the average set up?

Will: That is an almighty question! What's in my camera bag very much depends on the nature of my trip and how much I can physically carry - I am not one for packing light! My main camera body is a Canon EOS 1D MKIII and I share a Canon EOS 1Ds MKIII with my brother. I also have my old 1D MKII which I will usually take as a backup camera body (just in case!). In terms of lenses, I will rarely go on a trip without my 16-35mm f/2.8 or a 70-200mm f/2.8. If there is going to be wildlife then I will take a 300mm or 400mm prime lens. I have an 85mm f/1.2 lens which is great in low light and finally my 150mm macro lens is always handy to have around.

A few things I can’t live without, which might seem surprising for a wildlife photographer, are a couple of speedlite flashes and an array of accessories such as diffusers, reflectors, off camera cords etc... These greatly increase your creative boundaries and open up new areas such as night photography. A good lighting setup is also crucial for macro photography.

I never travel without a sturdy tripod. I generally use a ball head which gives me maximum speed and mobility for photographing wildlife. I also recommend getting a beanbag which can be great if you are shooting from a vehicle or a hide.

Finally, data storage is always important and can be quite a challenge on long trips. I take a MacBook Air and a rugged external hard drive which I will download my photos to at the end of each day... this will always stay behind in the room when I go out shooting. I also have a separate 80GB Jobo Gigavue Pro which I copy all my pictures to and which stays with me at all times. When you are investing in an expensive photo trip, the most important thing is to ensure your pictures are safe!
 
After all that is packed I will generally have just about enough room left for a spare pair of underpants and a microfleece.



kkart: What do you aspire for in your photography? If your images have a message, what is it you would say they communicate?

Will: I aspire to capture and share the wonder and beauty of the natural world. If a small part of what I feel as I look through the viewfinder comes through in my photographs then that means I have been successful. Ultimately I am trying to inspire people to go out and see these wonders for themselves and also remind them that there is plenty on this planet worth conserving.

kkart: What personally drives you as a photographer and makes you say to yourself “I must have that shot”, what makes you click the shutter?

Will: Wildlife photography is challenging because one portrait of a particular animal is much the same as any other. Therefore, the one thing I strive for above all else is originality. This may be achieved by capturing some interesting behaviour, by showing the animal in a beautiful environment or by shooting from a new perspective. The standard of wildlife photography has improved so much in recent years that having a sharp, well-composed image in good lighting is not enough to make it stand out anymore.



kkart: So as a brother team (his younger brother is Matthew Burrard-Lucas [link] ) it must give you a unique take on things, how did it come about with your brother getting into photography? I am guessing you are responsible here for his wonderful corruption?

Will: Yes we have always had similar interests and once I got into photography, it wasn’t long before Matthew started to take pictures as well!



We have found that working as a team has helped us expand our horizons as wildlife photographers – in fact, some of our best images have been joint photographs. This is because we will bounce ideas off each other and work out ingenious ways to photograph a subject. In addition many of our pictures would not have been possible without two sets of hands; for example, in the caiman photograph [below], I operated a long pole with the camera at the end which I inched towards the caiman while Matthew held an off-camera flash and triggered the camera using a shutter release cord.



Working as a team also allows us to cover a shoot with different lenses such as in the meerkat series below; one person used a telephoto lens to get the portrait shots while the other used a wide angle to get the environmental shots. We are not selfish and share lenses and equipment equally; at the end of the day, as long as one of us manages to get a winning shot then we are both happy.




kkart: What advice can you give/share with aspiring nature photographers on deviantART who want to shoot nature as their main subject? Can you share some of your tricks with getting shots with us?

Will: In wildlife photography it is important to know your equipment inside out. You often only have a split second to get a shot and you rarely get a second chance if you mess it up. Therefore practice using your equipment as much as possible, shoot everything and experiment with different settings.

Shoot RAW for the same reason as above; you often only get one chance to take a shot. Shooting RAW means that if you don’t quite nail the exposure, there will be much more recoverable data in your picture and your chances of saving even a poorly exposed shot are greatly improved.

One thing that generally can’t be rescued is a motion-blurred image, so make sure your shutter speeds are fast enough. On occasion this may mean you need to increase the ISO and risk more noise but that is still better than a blurred picture. With long lenses, the effects of camera shake are amplified and as a general rule of thumb, your shutter speed should be at least as fast as one over the length of your lens i.e. for a 200mm lens you should have a shutter speed of at least 1/200s and for a 400mm your shutter speed should be at least 1/400s. I would always recommend using a tripod or resting your camera on a beanbag as this can further help minimize camera shake.

As with a motion-blurred picture, there isn’t much you can do with an out of focus photograph. At a minimum, make sure the animal’s eyes are in sharp focus. Even if everything else is out of focus, if the eyes are sharp you will have an engaging photograph.



As you get into wildlife photography more seriously, there are several things to remember; the first is that planning is crucial. Just like a photographer with a studio, you should try and envisage the photograph you are trying to get and then make it happen. This may mean choosing a particular spot and waiting for the animals to come to you or deciding to photograph an animal at a certain time of day when the light is better or their behaviour is more interesting. This planning process should start before you even leave your house; it should determine what equipment you take with you and even what time of year you decide to go. I would say that the majority of our best and most original photographs were planned out before we even picked up the camera.

Secondly, I urge you to concentrate on one or two primary subjects. Many people will go on safari and try and to get photographs of as many different species as possible; they will spend 15 minutes with one animal and then move off in search of the next thing to photograph. If you want to get really great shots then you need to be prepared to spend all day or even all week with one particular subject. When visiting a new location you might spend the first day or two discovering what an area has to offer and then pick a couple of subjects to concentrate on for the rest of your trip. Obviously you don’t have to go to extremes and ignore everything else, but I would recommend revisiting your chosen subject several times, at different times of day, and perhaps with a different lens each time so that you get some variety in your shots. If you do this then I guarantee you will get better photos than if you employ the “scattergun” approach. You will also end up with a decent set of images which could be useful at a later date (for example, you might decide to write an article about your subject and illustrate it with a selection of different images).

If there is wildlife near where you live then this is the perfect place for you to start. You are in a unique position to concentrate on photographing your local wildlife all year round and you will be rewarded with photo opportunities that someone visiting the area for a few days could never hope to get.

kkart: Will, you and your brother Matthew have travelled all over the world from Australia to Zambia, what are some of your personal favourite locations and most memorable experiences from your photo travels?

Will: It is hard to beat Africa as a destination for wildlife photography; the abundance of wildlife is unrivalled and it is often easy to approach and photograph the animals. The downside to this is that it is incredibly difficult to get an original shot when on safari!

A less popular destination but somewhere equally teaming with animals is the Pantanal in Brazil. This massive wetland region is over ten times the size of the Florida Everglades. Here the bird life is fantastic and you have a realistic chance of seeing animals such as Jaguars and Giant Anteaters that are almost impossible to see anywhere else in South or Central America. For this reason I would probably say that the Pantanal is my all-time favourite destination.



My most memorable experience in the Pantanal was my first sighting of a Jaguar. We had been looking for Jaguars for about a week but the weather had been appalling and we hadn’t seen anything. On our penultimate day the sun re-emerged and our patience was rewarded with an incredibly intimate encounter with this beautiful jaguar. The shot below is my favourite as it really captures the illusive jaguar in her element.



kkart: Where has your work appeared as far as publishing and or galleries go? What advice could you offer to those who wish to see their work published or displayed? How hard is it to get started?

Will: I have appeared in several UK photography magazines and other publications such as New Scientist. Recently Matthew and I have become “Ambassadors” for Natures Best Magazine in the US; this means we will be writing regular features for their stunning photography magazine – a really exciting opportunity!

I think the best way to get published is to be proactive; many photography magazines have reader galleries which you can submit to. I would also suggest that if you have a good idea for an article then contact magazines and ask them if they would like to run it. I am sure you’ll also be able to find a multitude of local publications that would be more than happy to publish some of you pictures. Just be proactive!

We have also found that one of the best ways to get noticed is by appearing in photography competitions. Therefore I would recommend entering as many contests as possible (although make sure you are happy with the terms and conditions before entering any contest). If you enter enough contests then eventually your perseverance should pay off.

kkart: You sell and license your images through your website [link] how successful has it been with selling and how do you market it along with your blog [link] Have you gotten much work from either?

Will: I built Burrard-Lucas.com with one goal in mind – search engine optimization (SEO). In other words, I designed the website so that people could find my images through search engines such as Google. It can take quite a while for a website to become well listed in the search engines but this strategy has really started to pay off and photo buyers are now finding us and requesting quotes on a daily basis. We still have a long way to go because only a fraction of our photographs are online but we are gradually making progress.

We have only really started using the blog seriously since January but it has already proved its worth as a fantastic marketing tool. In order to promote the blog we launched a wildlife photography competition (see below) and this has been great for attracting new subscribers. As with any blog, the key is to keep it regularly updated; therefore we have committed to try and post at least one article per week.

Like many photographers, I have started using twitter as a marketing tool (follow me [link]). This has been great for channelling people towards the website but I have found that Twitter’s true value lies in the fact that it has allowed me to connect with hundreds of like-minded photographers all over the world. I highly recommend giving it a go if you haven’t already – at first it can seem a bit pointless but after a while you will come to realize what you have been missing out on!



kkart: You are currently running a photography competition, “Wildlife Photography Competition” [link] can you give people here on deviantART some information on this on how they would go about entering and what the prizes are and rights that are all involved?

Will: Yes certainly, the competition theme is “Wildlife Portraits” and the deadline is 30th April 2009. A photograph of any animal is eligible as long as it was taken in the wild.

We have a fantastic prize on offer for the winner: an Olympus SP-570UZ, a camera with a 10-megapixel sensor and a 20x optical zoom with image stabilization – a perfect combination for wildlife photography!

The photographer retains all rights to photographs they submit. The only thing we will do is display the winning and highly commended photographs in connection with the competition once the entries have been judged. Feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.

kkart: You are a Canon user, what made you decide to use Canon products over the other manufacturers? Have you shot film at all? What about Medium and Large Format?

Will: It was chance really – the Canon EOS 1D Mk II came out just as I was looking to upgrade to a pro body and it was a revolutionary camera at the time so the decision to buy it wasn’t hard. Matthew and I have now invested in a number of Canon lenses so I don’t see us switching anytime soon.

I stopped shooting with film the day I went digital and I haven’t looked back. As for large and medium format, I certainly see the value in it but I do not have the time to taken on any more projects at the moment – maybe something for the future.

kkart: You younger brother Matthew and yourself has won several awards, and been chosen runner up many times, can you tell us about those?

Will: Until last year, Matthew qualified for the junior category in many competitions and won numerous awards. His first win was the15-17 year old category of Wildlife Photographer of the Year and that really kick started his ambition to take more award winning images. Recently he was also named Nature’s Best Youth Photographer of the Year and I believe his winning photograph of a Leopard Cub is still on display in the Smithsonian Museum, Washington ([link]).

At the end of last year, Matthew and I were runners up in the “Other Animals” category of the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest with our joint photo of a Caiman under Stars. It was a great experience to travel over to Germany for the awards ceremony and meet so many fantastic wildlife photographers.



kkart: Where do you see nature photography heading as a whole? How about in regards to conservation issues? Are there currently practices you wish to change and or eliminate? Brought to the forefront for awareness?

Will: Well one thing I’ve noticed is the quality of wildlife photography improving each year… you only have to look at the standard of images in National Geographic or in competitions such as Wildlife Photographer of the Year. I put this down to digital, not only because it gives photographers the tools to get better images, but also because it has made photography more accessible and there are now many more photography enthusiasts than there were a few years ago.
 
Tourists and the growing number of photographers have an important role to play in conservation. If local people can see that their forests and wild animals are more valuable as tourist attractions than they are as timber or bush meat then they will be motivated to conserve what they have. Of course this only works if the local communities benefit directly from tourism. Therefore, I would like to see foreign-controlled tour operators and lodges give more back to the local communities. In many of the places I have been I have seen this happening but there is still much more that can be done.



kkart: Who are your biggest influences and how have they had an impact on you and your photography?

Will: To be honest, I wouldn’t say there has been any single person who has had a significant influence my photography. Rather, I would say that the internet has been my biggest influence on my work! As I surf photographers’ galleries I find interesting shots and they inspire me to try and get similar results. For example, I remember the first time I saw an HDR photograph (many years ago now!) and that inspired me to read up on this new technique. I also remember seeing a gallery of fantastic star trail photographs which inspired some of the star trail wildlife shots shown above. From high-speed bird in flight shots to superbly detailed macro photographs, there is an inexhaustible supply of great galleries out there to inspire you!

kkart: If you could travel anywhere in the world to shoot where it would be and why?

Will: This summer we had planned to go to Madagascar but civil unrest recently broke out in the country and we decided to alter our plans. Nevertheless, Madagascar is still high on my list because its wildlife is so unique and so varied. In addition, many of the creatures there have not been over-photographed so we would have the chance to get plenty of unusual shots. I am hoping that in 2010 or 2011 we will be able to spend some time in Madagascar.

kkart: What does the future hold in photography for the Burrard-Lucas brothers? Where do you see yourself 10 to 20 years down the road?

Will: That is a very hard question to answer – I’m not even sure what we’ll be doing next year! Hopefully taking photographs of unusual creatures in remotes corners of the planet with a Canon EOS 1D Mk XV and a 16-600mm f/2.0 lens!



kkart: In closing, is there anything else you would like to add or say?

Will: I have two pieces of advice that are guaranteed to make you a better photographer, whatever your chosen subject.

Firstly, take lots of photos. The only way to get better is to practice. Experiment as much as possible and learn through trial and error. Look critically at your photos and try to identify why one photograph works and another fails. Learn from your mistakes and then keep trying until you get it right.

Secondly, look at lots of photos. Whether you like looking at photos in books, in magazines, online or in galleries, always keep your eyes peeled for good photos. When you do find a good photo, try to work out what you like about it and how it was taken. I find this is one of the best ways to generate new ideas and to learn new techniques.

If you would like to see more of my pictures please checkout my photoblog at [link] and if you would like to keep up to date with what we are doing then please subscribe to our blog at [link]

Thanks again John for giving me this opportunity to talk about my photography.