Guest Post: ‘It Never Hurts to Have a Dream’ by David Lloyd

February 4, 2010 Categories: Uncategorized by Gerry 6 Comments

Someone once remarked to me the pointlessness of storing pictures on computers after taking them. I did this for a long time. Then I used my other skills to make a website to show them to other people. Then suddenly with that, a Flickr account, and a Facebook fan page I’ve had an unexpected number of requests for publications, including a national newspaper coverage of my white sparrow, some of battling crocodiles, red deer, and one nice one I took in Rwanda for National Geographic Traveler. I feel so far I’ve not properly tried, all this is on the back of that little snippet of advice.

I’m a New Zealander living in England, married to a Welsh girl who also loves Africa. Gina and I travel about three times a year, mostly to African countries, but sometimes we’ll try out something different – later this year we’ll visit India and next year Antarctica. But this year it’s Africa thrice again, Botwsana (I’ve always wanted to paddle the Delta since I was a kid), Kenya in time for the migration like we did last year, and possibly Zambia at the end of it. In these places, people may buy themselves drums, masks and carvings, but my souvenirs are my photos. Once bitten, then many times so, that is Africa.

I’ve always used Nikon cameras and there’s no reason to change. Normally it’s a D700 and D300 with a 70-200 on one and a 200-400 on the other. With a 12-24 that covers most things. I have a 50 f/1.4 and an 85 f/1.4 because you never know.

Everyone has their influences, or should, and mine’s the Shah brothers, and I like what Matt and Will Burrard Lucas are doing. I can’t leave off Frans Lanting, the late Fritz Polking and I won’t forget Jim Brandenburg’s Arctic wolves. Andy Rouse, for all he encompasses, is a stand out photographer of wildlife for me.

I don’t look at pictures of my first African trip anymore. It takes months or years to find your eye, and only after the second and third trips I was beginning to find mine.

If you’re going to take successful pictures of wild things, you need to have in order of importance: knowledge of your subject, preparation, a good sense of picture, a good camera. I do admit that I need to work more on the first one.

I have two eyes, one’s for color, the other’s for black and white, because I like each equally. Sometimes when a color picture doesn’t work well, I find it can surprise me in black and white. There is an element of black and white that I cannot explain, and that is why it evokes more emotion than a color one would, particularly of sympathetic subjects.

I don’t like the rat-a-tat style of motor-photography. It’s good to observe and anticipate. It means you get to look at things with your own eyes too which is important. And it also means less picture editing once you’re home. You can rat-a-tat sometimes, but surely not all day for goodness sake.

I rarely review pictures after a day’s photography, often leaving it to a later day, bar a cursory glance. Early viewing at the height of expectation can deflate your spirit. After a time, like the next day when memory, excitement and expectation has slightly dimmed, your pictures surprise more and you’re ok. I dismissed my fox pictures last year only to return to them three months later and realise they’re among my best pictures. I still don’t travel with a laptop, they’re a nuisance anyway.

I tend to previsualise a lot. Weeks before we’d arrived in Rwanda to visit mountain gorillas last year, my imagination saw a picture of a gorilla squared up to me. I also wanted it to rain. The rain would bring in some texture to his fur and brighten up the colors as water can do. Sure enough, on nearing the group after a two hour hike, it began to rain lightly. At a minute short of the hour, we found a silverback some four metres in front, and all I needed was to move a little way to my right, and found myself with the picture I’d envisioned a few weeks earlier. It’s one of my favorite pictures.

I’ve prebaked scenes in my mind which I’d like to create a photograph of. When a situation emerges where the possibility of one of these scenes might work, I try to make it so. It’s like a bank of preparedness to draw from. For the most part it doesn’t work, but when it does, you’re glad that it does. Sometimes luck pans out well if you work for it.

Every picture tells a story but not always the whole story. One day in Amboseli, Kenya, we watched an elephant family with a young calf approach from our left while a lioness lay down just to our right. Once the family were near the lioness and ourselves, the single file formation became an ambling group where the adults surrounded and enclosed the youngster. Then they passed, and out of danger, the family reformed to their previous formation of a single file. The picture stands alone well, but a story can add more. Someone may tell me that a good picture needs no story or caption. Well, I will go along with that as well.

Currently we’re in London and we get away three or four times a year. We’ve also a bush camp in the middle of the African bush where we plan to live and be closer to the wildlife and action. It has a varandah on all four sides, and it’s less than two hours from the Masai Mara. I’ve not mentioned it before because at the moment it’s another previsualised image of my imagination.