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Chris Bray Photography

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25.01.2022 Would you kayak out to sea at night, with a bleeding tuna head, and lower it along with a camera and light down to 280m to see what deep sea monsters live there? The crystal-clear, warm tropical waters around Christmas Island are impossibly deep, making it an incredible place to explore the deep sea environment on a shoestring budget like this! Here's a little video I made of my friend and I managing to film Sixgill sharks here this past week - real 'living fossils' that can grow to 6-8m long! Please excuse the epic music, but it was pretty exciting! Haha

24.01.2022 My favorite place in the world? Christmas Island, Australia. A mind-blowingly diverse tropical paradise filled with rare birds and crabs, world-class diving including whale sharks in crystal-clear warm waters, spectacular jungle, waterfalls you can stand under, caves, epic blowholes, secluded turtle-nesting beaches, the lot! Having run photo tours to the worlds most amazing wildlife destinations for the last decade, Jess and I moved to Christmas Island a few years ago to em...bark on an ambitious project, to build @swelllodge - a luxury eco-lodge on the sea cliff overlooking the ocean on the far side of one of Australia’s most remote islands, by hand, ourselves, carrying every piece in. We were just getting going to international acclaim when the pandemic prevented tourists from arriving for 6 months, but a travel bubble has finally been created with Western Australia, and so we have been able to re-open the lodge at a last! We have a Michelin-star French chef privately cooking amazing meals for guests and stays are all-inclusive with daily guided tours so we can show you all the best bits of this hidden gem! This island has to be one of Australia’s best-kept secrets. Please help me to spread the word! Tag a friend who you’d like to visit with, and check out @swelllodge Thanks! @ Christmas Island, Indian Ocean See more

24.01.2022 Mystery ocean spiral! Any ideas? While flying along the southern coastline of Kangaroo Island south of South Australia to photograph the island's famous rock formation 'The Remarkables' from the air during a photo tour in 2015, the pilot and I suddenly saw this huge, bizarre spiral in the ocean, a couple of miles offshore. It was huge photographing zoomed in gave no sense of scale, so I went wider, including the plane wing and the large southern ocean swell in the back...ground for scale - it must have been 50-100m across? My pilot, who'd been flying there all his life, said he'd never seen anything like it and I've yet to find anyone who has. I'd love to know. Maybe some of you can tag in a pilot friend who may have seen something similar? Or if you have a theory? Presumably it's caused somehow by opposing currents meeting and stirring up silt from the seafloor, but it almost looks like someone's accidentally pulled the plug on the ocean a novel approach to combat rising sea levels!?! By the time we'd landed, swapped photo tour guests and headed out again 30min later, it was gone. @australiangeographic @australia @bbcearth @bbc_travel #postcardsfromtheworld #optoutside #goexplore #wonderfulplaces #travelbug #wanderlust #momentsofmine #placestovisit #earth #ocean #spiral #kangarooisland @destination.earth #Destinationearth #earthfocus @epicexplorepage #phototour #ourplanetdaily #earthmood #travel #EarthCapture #earthpix @beautifuldestinations #aerial #fly

24.01.2022 Merry Merry, Happy Happy! Here’s a free lock screen wallpaper for your phone today! Download at chrisbrayphotography.com/xmas.jpg then save it to your phone’s photos, go into your settings, wallpaper, then set this as your new one for today to help spread some christmas cheer! It’s been a very difficult year, and I for one am looking forward to 2021 hopefully bringing not only a vaccine and the resumption of international travel eventually, but also just a happier, more o...ptimistic vibe. Thanks for all your support this year, it’s kept me going. I can hardly wait to be able to return to doing what I love most, traveling to the world’s most wonderful places with my photo tour guests and helping them capture some unforgettable images and experiences. Soooon I hope, at least domestically... stay tuned. #merrychristmas @ Christmas Island, Indian Ocean See more

23.01.2022 Well, only a few days ago I was sitting by a little stream here on Christmas Island watching some red crabs shuffling along the banks, thinking to myself that if it wasn’t for COVID-19, I would have been in Alaska right now. I would have been sitting beside a somewhat larger stream, one alive with salmon, surrounded not by crabs by mighty brown bears, framed in the background by beautiful mountains with our 8 photography tour guests. The silence of awe would settle around us ...each time a huge bear lumbered right past, and we’d be torn between watching, taking photos, and peering into the distance to see if any bear cubs or wolves were coming in In the evenings I miss excitedly downloading photos, showing them to each other over a drink and a hearty Alaskan meal, discussing ways to get even better bear photos tomorrow along with some puffins, sea otters and eagles too But of course, 2020 had other plans for all of us. See more

20.01.2022 Happy Mother’s Day Feel the love, peace and pride radiating from this stunningly beautiful Himba woman and her tiny newborn baby she let me photograph in their temporary nomadic village in northern Namibia a few years ago. I hope if you have a Mum, you go out of your way today to ensure she knows just how much you appreciate the gift of life she gave you and all the sacrifices she made for you, many of which you’ll never know. #mothersday #love #mum #himba #namibia #africa #tribal #cute #newborn #newmum #happymothersday #family

19.01.2022 Mind-blown My first-ever Australian Geographic assignment, 25yrs old in 2009, to Papua New Guinea the first time they'd ever sent a photographer overseas, accompanied by their talented writer Liz Ginis. A chance meeting on our second evening led to us being driven for hours up into the remote highlands behind Rabaul where a special tribal ceremony was about to take place. I'd heard about traditional 'fire-dancing' performed for tourists but as we arrived, the only white...-people present, it rapidly became apparent as darkness fell that this was NOT going to be like that. The bonfire was so fiercely hot I couldn't get anywhere near it. The muggy air was heaving with the rhythmic chanting of the women and kids, thumping bamboo poles in the dark. Some women danced a few laps around the fire, then gave way to a growing parade of chanting, dancing warriors, naked, save some tufts of foliage, wearing enormous masks with immense, painted, staring eyes. Some had huge snakes they'd found in the jungle, and, catching glimpses of the men's actual faces - staring wild-eyed through the gaping duck-bills of their masks, I got the impression they were deep in the grips of some potent psychedelic. I crouched down to take a shot as one raged towards me and someone shouted and physically pulled me out of the way I don't think he even knew I was there. They became more entranced the longer they circled the fire. Some started darting up and kicking the outer embers, then eventually running through it's incinerating heart, and eventually even stopping to dance up and down inside the flames before stumbling out. One man collapsed inside the fire and others just danced on in and carried him out. Then, still chanting they started grabbing young kids, carrying them awkwardly through the flames as they screamed and cried in terror. I didn't really know what to do, it was my first assignment. I found Liz in the pounding dark and we exchanged looks. I still remember her expression, lit by the flames, that said more plainly than words: No, this isn't normal. But... what can you do? Keep shooting. Those 2 weeks in PNG were full of surprises, but that night stuck with me forever. @ Papua New Guinea

18.01.2022 The King My first - and still my best male lion in Africa. I snapped this guy on the first photo tour I ever ran to Kenya, 9.5 years ago. It was the end of a cloudy day which gave nice, even lighting but meant I was at ISO2000 to give me 1/500th sec, and I was using the old version 1 of Canon's 100-400mm lens because I'd lent my pride and joy my 600mm f/4 super-telephoto $12,000 lens - to one of my tour guests. The lion was sleeping as they do but would occasionally... stretch, yawn, look all around - everywhere except at my lens and then flop back down. 100 boring photos later, I finally lifted my head from behind my camera and just looked at him. Only then did he suddenly see me, and, lifting his head, fixed me with this intensely piercing gaze. I stared brazenly back, challenging him (from the safety of my vehicle) holding his full attention as I slipped back down behind by camera and took this photo. He quickly lost interest again and fell asleep, but I had the shot. I've lost count of the hundreds of male lions I've encountered over my 24 photo tours to Africa and my photography and camera gear have both got a lot better in the last decade, but nothing beats being in the right place, at the right time, with good lighting, a good background and a spectacularly handsome male lion, staring directly into your lens. There's so much luck in wildlife photography and what's partly why I love it so much. So much of it is outside your control. It's never perfect, but it's always exciting and you never know what you might end up with - and therein lies the motivation to keep on trying. If this was a wedding (which I've thankfully never shot), the lighting, the background, the pose, the setup and the whole situation would be my responsibility, and if I got it wrong, the lion (I mean the bride) would probably eat me alive. For wildlife, you've just got to do your best with whatever nature presents. Be ready, be patient, be adaptable and keep hoping. Sure it helps to have better gear, better skills, better behavioural knowledge of your subject and a decade of practice, but this photo always reminds me that even still, sometimes, it still comes down to luck

17.01.2022 Here's something that doesn't happen every day a wild cheetah leaping on top of your vehicle! This memorable morning was 6 years ago in Kenya, on the 2nd morning of our photo tour. We'd woken early to shoot silhouettes of wildebeest wandering past the skyline in front of the rising orb of the sun. Next we stumbled upon a spotted hyena, then this cheetah lazing in the grass! Both our CBP photo tour vehicles were there, Jess's car just across from mine, when suddenly the chee...tah stood up and walked calmly over towards Jess's vehicle and sprung up onto the back via the spare tyre. We'd heard stories of this happening occasionally perhaps they like to use the vehicle as a convenient lookout to scan their surroundings and everyone did a great job at staying calm (while hastily swapping to wide-angle lenses haha). Everyone suddenly froze however when he briefly peered down inside at everyone, looking very much like he might just hop in. He thought better of it however, had a bit of a chew on one of the beanbags instead, then leapt on top of the roof and lay down, tail dangling off the far side as he peered down at everyone, half lazy, half curious. Literally 20 minutes later he finally grew bored, stood up, peeped inside a few more times and then hopped down and sauntered off! Unforgettable, and I wasn't even in the car (so the inside photos are Jess's) but at least I got a great view parked directly opposite! What would we have done if she came inside? Stayed very still so as not to freak her out, and let her find her own way back out. Having a calm cheetah sniffing around in the vehicle actually wouldn't be a problem they are not dangerous to humans - but being stuck in a car with a scared one trying to escape could result in some scratches! Note this would have been a very different story if this was a leopard, which kill about 15 people a year, mostly in India. Both are big spotty cats, but cheetah are much slimmer, have black 'tear' marks down their cheeks and their spots are small and solid, rather than a leopard's which are not spots but rosettes blotches grouped together in circles with a hollow centre! What would you do?

17.01.2022 Adorable but disappearing These 3 little Australian sea-lion pups interrupted their mischief-making in the sand dunes of Seal Bay in Kangaroo Island, @australia to peer at me and my photo tour guests, before soon loosing interest and going back to rolling around and biting each other as they waited for their mums to return from the southern ocean to give them another feed of milk. Ten years ago an estimated mere 14,730 Australian sea lions existed on Earth. 4 years late...r only 6,500 were left and the population at all but one breeding colony continues to fall. They are now one of the most endangered pinnipeds (seals and sea lions) in the world. Main threats these days are apparently intersections with commercial fishing gear and illegal shooting. Fish aquaculture also causes loss of their habitat, entanglement and direct killing too. Some drown entangled in rock lobster traps and commercial fishers illegally shoot them because the sea lions compete with ‘their fishery’. They are also caught as bycatch in both SA and WA fishing industry, which is now thankfully reducing in the Dangerous Reef area due to closure of that gillnet fishery and pup numbers are increasing there. I’ve had a bit of luck with the cuteness-overload of this photo - my favorite was seeing it printed as a larger than life feature wallpaper on the national park info centre there, enjoyed by more than 100,000 visitors every year @australiangeographic @bbcearth @bbc_travel #postcardsfromtheworld #goexplore #wonderfulplaces #travelbug #wanderlust #momentsofmine #placestovisit #earth @destination.earth #Destinationearth #earthfocus #ourplanetdaily #earthmood #EarthCapture #babyanimals #cuteanimals #cute #love #kangarooisland #seal #sealion #adorable #wildlife #australiananimals #sealbay @southaustralia

17.01.2022 Controversy! One of my most memorable wildlife encounters created some drama! As anyone who’s been lucky enough to go to South Georgia knows, young elephant seal pups like this are almost as curious and brazen as they are heavy. While there certainly are IAATO guidelines (I’m an accredited IAATO field guide) recommending Antarctic tourists don’t approach closer than 5m, no one tells the seals this. If you’re crouching down photographing passing King penguins as I was, it’s no...t usual for one of these blubbery giants to flop right up and check you out - even the official IAATO guidelines conceded Elephant seal pups are often very inquisitive and may approach close to passengers. It is important that the weaner is in control of any interaction at all times. I.e. just be calm and let it do its thing - don’t try and push it off, and it’ll move on, leaving you perhaps with a slightly numb feeling in your squashed leg that will pass, and a feeling of humbled awe that will stick with you forever. It is precisely these kind of unforgettably intimate, almost magic encounters that creates life-long ambassadors for wildlife - where a completely wild animal chooses to come and interact with you of its own accord, without the usual fear of humans we’ve driven into most animals in most places. Sacred moments like this never leave you. Unfortunately, as when anything goes viral and large numbers of people see it, inevitably a (loud) minority don’t understand what’s actually being shown (and won’t bother to read the caption) and will leap right to the misinformed assumption I must have walked right up and pushed myself underneath this pup to get this selfie, proclaiming You shouldn’t approach wildlife that close! Totally irresponsible! While 99.9% of global responses to this were filled with joy, wonder and delight, the scandalised, misinformed minority were so loud that I had groups requesting I delete it, mentions of legal action and so on. I refused, pointing out I had 100% followed guidelines, and that I feel sharing beautiful moments like this helps foster the kind of love for wild places that will hopefully continue to see them protected from mining into the future. (You'll have to head to my Instagram feed to see the two cute videos, as FB doesn't allow combined video and photo posts to pages)

15.01.2022 A wake of vultures gather around an ex-buffalo in Kenya. I always wanted to try and capture this shot from inside a carcass with the vultures leaning in and finally in 2015 I found the right moment. Literally holding my breath (it STANK well before I got to it), I set the GoPro recording placed it inside the manky, disgustingly-humid and warm cavity, then high-tailed it back into the vehicle before any lurking predators came to defend their kill. It didn't take long for these... white-backed vultures to return and start squabbling and carrying-on just as I'd hoped. Eventually one clambering right inside knocked the camera over, and that was that. The audio on the video is amazing too (turn it on!), the buzzing of the flies and hissing and screaming of the vultures. Yikes. I smeared hand-sanitiser all over the GoPro and it still smelt for days! But I got some good pics and videos! As gruesome as vultures can appear, not only are they super impressive birds, but they play a vital role in the ecosystem, disposing of carcasses, stopping the spread of disease etc. Unfortunately, there is a lot of superstition and hatred surrounding them and despite this white-backed vulture being the most widespread and common in Africa of the 11 species, it is listed as Critically Endangered by the ICUN Red List, population decreasing, with declines of around 75 to 95% in many parts of its range. Globally, vulture populations are crashing: They are illegally poached for their body parts for traditional medicinal as well as for meat. In other areas there's a mistaken belief that they are a threat to healthy livestock or that they are harbingers of death, and so large numbers deliberately poisoned or driven away. In my young(ish) lifetime even, the population of white-rumped vultures in India for example, has collapsed from 80 million to just a couple of thousand! When I learnt this a couple of years ago, I started looking at vultures quite differently. As with many things we mistakenly take for granted, it's not until you realise you could lose them forever that you appreciate just how impressive, formidable and specialised these amazing birds are.

15.01.2022 Flash-free Hummingbirds much harder, but much more satisfying The hummingbird lodges we use for our photo tours in Ecuador request guests do NOT use flash photography as it disturbs these busy little visitors. I've seen it BANG immediately the hummingbirds that were all hovering around taking their turns feeding, waiting and squabbling, suddenly all whir away into the jungle and take a long time to regain their courage. Some other lodges do allow flash photography as ...many photographers push for it, because most of the dazzling photos of hummingbirds you'd have seen will very likely been taken with a flash multiple flashes actually, from many different angles simultaneously. Worse, the entire scene is often a complete setup, the soft green blurry jungle background is actually a material drape hung behind the feeder and motion-triggers or laster beam-break triggers are often used to automatically take a photo whenever a hummingbird zips in front of the feeder, while the 'photographer' sits back in the bar. Sure there's skill involved in setting up the flashes and triggers, but trying to get a decent shot using natural light and with a real background is actually some of the hardest photography I've done, and is excellent practice. It's always terribly weak light under the rainforest canopy, but you need at least 1/500th sec to not end up with a blurry mess, you're constantly struggling with high ISO and smallest f/# to get that light in, which means your Depth of Field is tiny, requiring accurate focus on these hyperactive little birds that almost seem to be able to 'feel' your AF lock on and vanish before you can get the shot. You also need to position yourself so it will likely hover in front of an aesthetically green patch of background (without dark shadows) and at just the right angle so their iridescent feathers catch the light. Besides being kinder to the birds though, using natural lighting means you can also flick to video and film astonishing slow-motion impossible with flashes. Cool huh?! We include a few days in the cloud forest in the Andes photographing hummingbirds in our annual 2 week Galapagos, Amazon & Hummingbird tour.

13.01.2022 ATTENTION WEST AUSTRALIANS: We are seeking expressions of interest in a Christmas Island Photography Tour, 13th - 20th October 2020, max 4 guests, hosted by Jess Bray. A ‘travel bubble’ has now been established between Christmas Island and Western Australia, so we can now reopen Swell Lodge and run photography tours! Christmas Island is the perfect ‘overseas’ photography tour destination for our Western Australian guests. It’s a photographer’s paradise, alive with rare and u...nusual birds, crabs and world-class snorkelling. Spend 7 nights at the luxurious Swell Lodge in the middle of the Christmas Island National Park; by day you’ll be guided by a professional photographer to help you capture the unique wildlife, island landscapes, Jurassic jungle scenes and boat snorkelling tours. In the evenings you’ll enjoy relaxing on your ocean front deck back at the lodge while your private chef comes and cooks gourmet three-course dinners. This tour is all-inclusive: from the moment you land on Christmas Island, all transfers, daily photography excursions, food and drinks are taken care of, and this exclusive tour is limited to just four guests. For more information please visit our website, we need both (two) eco-chalets to be booked on the photography tour before confirming. If you are interested please email: [email protected] $4,995 AUD twin share / $7,905 AUD single supplement Please share with your West Australian friends!

12.01.2022 Getting there with my ebook ‘14 indoor photography projects’ just finished and released the Water Drops one to my subscribed followers on Patreon (along with the other 7 I’ve done)! Had fun working out how to make it really simple and practical without needing any fancy timers or drip controllers. Hope you’re all having a good weekend! Check out patreon.com/chrisbrayphotography if you want to get your hands on these projects early!

12.01.2022 ONE-SPOT left on our otherwise SOLD-OUT - Tasmania Photography Tour, 20th Mar - 25th Mar 2021! Join our team for an unforgettable 5 days of photographing some of Tassies most iconic sights from Coles Bay, Maria Island and Cradle Mountain National Park by plane, helicopter and boat!!! Give yourself something to look forward to in 2021! Email [email protected] for more information or to book.

10.01.2022 Fav flamingo pic? Fun facts: the word ‘flamingo’ comes from the Spanish word ‘flamenco’ meaning ‘fire’ . There are 6 species of flamingos in the world. To feed they hang their head upside down and filter the water through their beak to sieve our little bugs like brine shrimp, rich in beta caratene which is what gives them their pink colour! If you just kept them in a zoo and fed them other things they become pale and dull (like most things in zoos, but on the inside ). So a...mazing to see such huge numbers of these amazing birds in some of the salt likes in Kenya every year for the last 10 years, with the exception of this year - damn covid-19! Can’t wait to travel again and lead more photo tours to all my favorite places in the world. @bbcearth @bbc_travel #postcardsfromtheworld #goexplore #wonderfulplaces #travelbug #wanderlust #momentsofmine #placestovisit #earth @destination.earth #Destinationearth #earthfocus @epicexplorepage #ourplanetdaily #earthmood #travel #EarthCapture #earthpix @beautifuldestinations #kenya #flamingo #africa #africananimals #wildlife #pink #aerial @magicalkenya @ Kenya

07.01.2022 Caption this I snapped this hilarious moment in Alaska back in 2017 as this large bear walked right behind some tourists who were falling asleep because they couldn’t see any bears. Surprise! Happily the bear passed uneventfully and they were much more awake after this. @bbcearth @bbc_travel #postcardsfromtheworld #optoutside #goexplore #wonderfulplaces #travelbug #wanderlust #momentsofmine #placestovisit #earth @destination.earth #Destinationearth #earthfocus @epicexplorepage #ourplanetdaily #earthmood #travel #EarthCapture #earthpix @natureismetal #bear #alaska #brownbear #scary

06.01.2022 Too spiky to cuddle, too cute not to. What would you do? I still remember spotting this rolled up baby hedgehog on the roadside in Kenya 10 years ago in 2010 when running my first African photo tour. I gently picked it up to see if it was ok. It was alive just a bit freaked out from the traffic, and so once I put it someplace quieter (and started taking these macro photos), it twitched it’s little nose, wriggled it’s little feet and gradually unfurled itself and trundled away. Adorable. @bbcearth @bbc_travel #postcardsfromtheworld #optoutside #goexplore #wonderfulplaces #travelbug #wanderlust #momentsofmine @destination.earth #Destinationearth #earthfocus #ourplanetdaily #earthpix #babyanimals #cuteanimals #cute #love #hedgehog #adorable #africa #kenya #cuteanimals #wildlife

03.01.2022 Baby Christmas Island Red Crab on my finger! Amazingly, no one knows where these adorable little critters hang out for the month of their life!!! One month before I took this, one of the largest animal migrations on Earth was in full swing: Some 40-million red crabs had emerged from their jungle burrows on this tropical paradise and made their way down to the coast to mate, then all spawn billions of eggs into sea together at the turn of the tide one very special morning. The... eggs hatch instantly and are washed out to see as tiny plankton-like whirlygigs. But where do those that are not swallowed by the waiting whale sharks, go? No one knows. Do they drift way out on ocean currents, or do they hang around down deep somewhere locally? Four weeks later, they're much larger and have morphed into their 'megalope' stage - a bit like a cross between a prawn and a crab and suddenly millions and millions of them turn up one morning, carpeting the shoreline red as they moult into these cute mini crabs and scurry upwards into the jungle. Some years almost none return, others (like this recent season) were absolutely epic, the biggest ever. Sometimes a few wash up on Cocos (keeling) Island almost 1000km away, so maybe they are out there in the big blue sea, at the mercy of ocean currents and some years the current just doesn't bring many back? Who knows? It's a big mystery here. A few years back, during the baby crab return, some scuba divers came upon immense underwater clouds of the megalopes, just hanging off one the many km of world-class drop-off dive walls here. They said it was such a dense congregation that reaching in, their whole arm would disappear inside the mass. Had they just risen from deeper down, or just drifted in, what brought them together? Why was nothing (except whale sharks) eating them? So fascinating. I love this place. @australiangeographic @australia @bbcearth @bbc_travel #postcardsfromtheworld #optoutside #goexplore #wonderfulplaces #travelbug #wanderlust #momentsofmine #placestovisit #earth #ocean @destination.earth #Destinationearth #earthfocus @epicexplorepage #ourplanetdaily #earthmood #travel #EarthCapture #earthpix @ Christmas Island, Indian Ocean

03.01.2022 Favorite leopard shot? It’s hard for me to objectively disentangle the photo from the exciting moment of taking it! As the most elusive and secretive of all the big cats - and usually solitary - it’s always a huge thrill to find one in the wild and I can remember every encounter behind each of these images! These cats always seem to exude an intoxicating blend of power, grace, beauty, agility, patience, poise, stealth, focus and danger, despite most of the time I have spent l...ooking at them through a lens they usually exhibit a frustrating blend disinterest and lethargy, draped in some tree, looking the wrong way. Haha. It balances out I guess. These brief moments when the stars align into not just a sighting but a photo opportunity, make it all worthwhile. @bbcearth @bbc_travel #postcardsfromtheworld #goexplore #wonderfulplaces #travelbug #wanderlust #momentsofmine #placestovisit #earth @destination.earth #Destinationearth #earthfocus @epicexplorepage #ourplanetdaily #earthmood #travel #EarthCapture #earthpix @beautifuldestinations @magicalkenya #leopard #cat #bigcat #wildlife #africananimals @ Africa

03.01.2022 Front or side? Did you know just how SMALL puffins are? I love asking my Iceland photo tour guests how big they think puffins are before they see one, and usually they guess about the size of a chunky duck or even larger. It’s always such a delight to see everyone’s reaction to seeing one of these adorable little birds for the first time: OMG look - they’re so small!!! Haha. These are my pics of Atlantic puffins, they weigh less than 500g (less than 1 lbs) and only have a wingspan of about 1/2 m (1.6 ft) Smaller than you thought too? I wonder why we all think they are so much bigger in the photos and documentaries we see? It’s hilarious. Sometimes I can even get guests to believe they will be the size of turkeys!

02.01.2022 15 years ago it was this Arctic Fox that made me want to become a wildlife photographer! My mate Clark and I were somewhere in the middle of Victoria Island in the Canadian arctic, arduously hauling our home-made wheeled aluminium kayaks with fold-down wheels across the tundra in our 'The 1000 Hour Day' expedition - a journey that ultimately took us 75 days and two attempts to cross the 1,000 km island unsupported, each towing 250kgs of gear & supplies past polar bears, wolve...s etc. Beset by challenges, on this particular day I remember being huddled over the kayaks trying to fix the steel towing brackets that we'd managed to completely tear in half from the strain of hauling, when this adorable little fox provided a welcome distraction as it bounded curiously past. Grabbing the 400mm lens that a contact at Canon had managed to sneakily loan for me from their media loan gear (they'd rejected my sponsorship application) I still remember the feeling of excitement as I surreptitiously snuck closer and closer, checking settings, refocusing and just being amazed at how perfect the opportunity was - nice lighting, a clean blue lake background and then having this little fox pause for a brief moment and gaze through the lens at me * click * Reviewing my photos that evening, when I saw that this one had worked out, I was buzzing not just with how beautiful the experience had been, but also at the thought of perhaps trying to make a career out of wildlife photography! Imagine traveling to all the world's most wonderful places, somehow earning a living from spending time in the sacred presence of all kinds of amazing animals doing their thing in their environment, working out cool new ways to capture unique images and share these moments with the world, helping conservation projects and generally living the dream... I still can't really believe that thanks in part to this little fox (and the support and encouragement from countless people, camera brands, magazines etc) that all of this somehow actually became reality @australiangeographic @bbcearth #postcardsfromtheworld #goexplore #wonderfulplaces #travelbug #wanderlust #cute #arctic #fox #wildlife

01.01.2022 Just opened our new & improved Karijini & Ningaloo photo tour for April 2021! The only photo tour combining the spectacular red gorges, waterfalls and brilliant stars of Karijini as well as private, small-group snorkeling with whale sharks at Ningaloo - this epic experience just got even bigger and better for 2021! We now include TWO exclusive days with whale sharks, get around Karijini in two sweet 4WDs instead of a minibus and somehow managed to reduce the price overall too...! Win-win! So excited for this! Check out the full tour itinerary on our website, but essentially, we'll start with four diverse days at the acclaimed Karijini Eco Retreat photographing astonishing canyons and other landscapes, birds and the Milky Way, then charter a private plane over the breathtaking Pilbara landscape to the coast near Exmouth (saving like 2 days of driving) for 3 nights at Mantarays, giving us two days of whale shark swims because we've learnt the first day is just too amazing to concentrate on your photos! Haha. There's also emus, roos, birds and other cool stuff around there too, including a boat trip up a beautiful gorge. Complete with private boat and plane charters, great accommodation and our friendly tour leaders helping you improve your photography, this Karijini and Ningaloo Photo Tour is the ultimate way to experience the best of Western Australia. I don't know about you, but we're pretty sick of this Pandemic and need a few travel highlights on the horizon to pull us through. Come! You'll love it. Lock in now, or miss out. We're only bringing 8 guests max. Visit our website for details or to book your spot before all 8 sell out!

01.01.2022 I wonder how many Aussies are registered bear guides in Alaska? Haha. When I spotted my first brown bear in the wild in 2013 from my little sail boat, Jess and I were too terrified to even go ashore. I still remember meeting my first bear on foot, a shaggy brown bulk with piggy eyes that suddenly bounded up an embankment and came face to face with me, scaring the bejesus out of each other. I certainly wanted to run, but happily I had read what I was supposed to do, and manage...d to do it, and all was well. Now, having learnt plenty more about reading bear behaviour (and also how to behave ourselves) from a few summers collaborating with one of the best guides in the business, every Northern summer (except 2020, damn you covid-19) I find myself in the surreal situation of leading my eight astonished photo tour guests ashore every morning, giving way to a mosaic of interacting bears as we set up our line of chairs and tripods beside a river, ready for another round of some of the most amazing wildlife and photographic experiences anyone could dream of. I ensure my guests are super well behaved, respect the bears completely, and I'm always monitoring what's going on and managing the group so the bears are 100% comfortable in our presence and just continue to do their thing. I've never once even nearly had to use the bear pepper-spray I carry, and neither has any other operator in the area. So, would you come ashore with me? @bbcearth @bbc_travel #postcardsfromtheworld #goexplore #wonderfulplaces #travelbug #wanderlust #momentsofmine #placestovisit #earth #ocean @destination.earth #Destinationearth #earthfocus #ourplanetdaily #earthmood #travel #EarthCapture #earthpix #bears #alaska #wildlife #phototour #brownbear #grizzlybear @ Alaska