Latest / Wildlife and Adventure Photography / Wildlife and landscapes with Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove

Transcript

Wildlife and landscapes with Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove · Wildlife and Adventure Photography

• 0:08
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Foreign.
• 0:17
  > Graham>Okay, well, welcome to another podcast and, I'm delighted to have a guest with me on this one who I think you'll enjoy as well. Now, so this is Yuru Van Nievenhofen. Close.
• 0:36
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>It's a difficult name. It's a difficult name.
• 0:39
  > Graham>and Yiru as, if you haven't seen his work now, we'll put a link to his website and his Instagram account in the, description. Yuru is based in Iceland, originally from Belgium. Now based in Iceland and primarily with wildlife, nature. Ah, that style of photography.
• 1:03
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, yeah. I like to call myself a hybrid photographer, so I focus a lot on landscapes and wildlife. I kind of combine or try to combine both of them.
• 1:13
  > Graham>Great. Well, from what I've seen, you do an amazing job because, and I do recommend everyone have a look at the website because there's some amazing stuff on there.
• 1:22
  > Graham>So we were having a little chat before we started about how we're going to run this and I think what I'm going to do is hand over to, you to maybe talk a little bit about, tell us a bit more about the kind of photography you do. the people who listen to the podcast a lot are interested in the wildlife photography aspects and what goes on and how you approach it and all that. So, I should have given you a heads up on that earlier, but, there you go. So I'll hand over to you to share a little bit of what you do and perhaps how people can get involved.
• 1:54
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, so I, started out long, long time ago. I started out my journey, not in landscape or wildlife. I started in, concert and event photography. and then I kind of felt like I needed an escape from that. So I started to delve more into landscapes. and then very quickly, I've always had sort of a fascination with any kind of animal really. And very quickly I started to look into how I could do more wildlife. And I think the initial, phase in that was when I started to discover Arctic foxes here in Iceland. and I, for some reason, and I still am super fascinated by buy them, and how to photograph them and see them in the wild. It's something that, I find them such interesting animals, both in terms of how they behave, but also how they manage to survive in such extreme environments. And, that's really where, it got started for me. and here in Iceland we don't have an awful lot of interesting wildlife, I have to say. but, we have a lot of birds. So I'm also fairly, big into bird photography. and my absolute favourite subject there are, the Atlantic puffin, which I absolutely love photographing. An absolute joy to see and to capture.
• 3:21
  > Graham>Yeah, I'm curious about the foxes actually. so how easy is it to find them? Or is this one of these situations where you need to sort of stake out an area for a while and maybe use a hide or something like that to see them?
• 3:36
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, well it really depends where you go because in the vast majority of Iceland, Arctic foxes are very, very shy. they fear people. The reason they fear people is because for the longest time and still today, foxes are seen as sort of vermin. so people tend to shoot them. this idea of foxes being vermin is a little bit changing now over the years. And there's one particular area, there's a protected nature reserve in the northwest, of Iceland where foxes are basically free. there's no one hunting them. regulations in regards to approaching them are very strict. even though they're awfully curious about people as well.
• 4:22
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 4:22
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And they love human structures. This is an area where now probably for the 9th or the 10th generation foxes, have lived without being in fear of being hunted. Okay, so in Iceland that's probably the best location to go to. I mean I don't know how they count this, but I've heard numbers as, as much as 80% of the entire Arctic fox population in Iceland is supposedly living there. but outside of our area you can see foxes pretty much anywhere in the country. but most of the time they will see you and you won't see them because they are very afraid of people. but there are some other areas where I've been where they tend to not be so shy. and yeah, then you can approach them fairly easily. there's absolutely no need to sit in a height. I think the most important thing is that you don't wear super bright colours, that you don't make any sudden movements. But generally they're not so, bothered by people if you meet them in ah, an area where they are not afraid of people.
• 5:29
  > Graham>Right, that's great.
• 5:31
  > Graham>And what sort of camera gear are you using to photograph them? Has that changed over time?
• 5:37
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, so I'm now using, primarily, and I have for several years now, I'm primarily using the 100 to 500, Canon RF lens. I absolutely love that lens because it's, it's so versatile, it's well built, it's built like A tank. I think it's, I think I've owned mine now probably five years now, maybe a little bit longer and it still feels like it's, it's brand new make super sharp images. And of course it's not as good in low light. But I find the photographing at high ISO these days doesn't really, it doesn't really matter all that much anymore. You can clean up images even at really high ISO very easily. And especially foxes when you, when I photograph them it's usually ah, bright enough for it to not matter.
• 6:28
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 6:29
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>then I've also used the 200 to 800 which I tested recently and I specifically tested those with while photographing Arctic foxes.
• 6:39
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 6:40
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>and I use all of that in combination with EOS R5 Mark 2 now. But I've had, over the years I've had a variety of cameras. I've had the R5, the R6, had the original R, which was probably one of the most frustrating cameras I've ever owned.
• 6:55
  > Graham>Yeah, I think that comes through a learning curve.
• 6:58
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, yeah, they've definitely improved a lot over the years, but I'm very happy with my R5 mark II today which is an excellent, excellent camera for wildlife.
• 7:08
  > Graham>Brilliant. And do you use that with the puffins as well? Is that sort of go to lens for you?
• 7:12
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yes, yeah, I use the 100 to 500. I've now I'm like looking into maybe buying something that has a wider aperture, just to give me a little bit more options when it does get darker. But for the puffins it doesn't really matter because at the time you photograph them we pretty much have 24 hours of daylight. So the times that you would, you, you would need a really wide aperture is really in terms of light, probably in dusk, twilight kind of situations.
• 7:46
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 7:47
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>but definitely like I, I don't feel like I've missed it so far, but I've used one this summer, to test it. yeah, it was, it was a lot of fun but I didn't feel like it. You know, I love my 100 to 500 so much, this purpose that I didn't feel like I missed, missed out on a lot there.
• 8:07
  > Graham>Yeah. Yeah. So presumably with. Are you tending to photograph more in the summer because you've got longer days and so you've got lights for much, much more of the day.
• 8:20
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, for wildlife it's definitely mostly in the summer also because most of the birds are here in the summer. In, the winter, we have some birds that stick around, but it's not an awful lot. And the foxes, that becomes very difficult in the winter because logistically, to get to an area, to get to that area where they're protected, for example, it's quite, a challenge. because this area is protected, you can't get there easily.
• 8:45
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>It's not like you can drive there with, a car. You need to get someone with a boat. in the winter, you can't really camp. so you need to, book a stay in one of the very few houses, that are left there after people used to live there. So there are lots of abandoned houses that you can hire, for your stay. And it's not so easy to stay there and to be there. So in the winter, options are very limited for wildlife photography here.
• 9:16
  > Graham>Yeah. So is that when you would tend to look at.
• 9:18
  > Graham>We were talking about Antarctica and you were heading down there, so I think we should talk about where you operate. But Antarctica, do you tend to go down there in the northern winter? So when it's summer down, yes.
• 9:31
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>So when it's summer. Yeah. because that's the only. You know, I'm sure there are ways to go there in the winter, but I think it's very, very hard.
• 9:40
  > Graham>yeah.
• 9:41
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>logistically, but also to be outside must be very hard. so. Yeah, yeah, so we go there now. my next trip there will be in February. very much looking forward to being there.
• 9:51
  > Graham>Yeah. And what's the. The purpose of that? Is that more wildlife or, is that work or is that for a project or to support something else?
• 10:00
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>it's a, joint workshop, that I'm running with a few other photographers, both wildlife and landscape, photographers. and, this is originally hosted by Nigel Danson, very famous, landscape photographer. But some famous, wildlife photographers on that trip will be Rachel Bixby, for example, Danny, Connor, who's very famous, with her squirrel. Squirrel images in Sweden. and it's a trip where you. I mean, the landscapes are amazing, but for me, the wildlife in the landscapes is where it's really at. there's not really any place in the world I've been that's quite like this because, I find, like, the first time. I'll never forget the first time I went to a penguin rookery. We got off the Zodiac and you start walking around. And what amazed me immediately was it almost felt like you're in some kind of BBC Earth documentary. Everything is kind of happening around you and none of the penguins seem to care that you're there. They are not curious, they are not scared, they are just doing what they're doing. I'll never forget this one moment where I'm walking, walking, in the snow and then I'm taking a photo of a penguin and on my right there are two penguins that ah, came waddling towards me and I thought, okay, oh, these are curious, they want to come and look at what I'm doing. But that wasn't really true because about three metres from me they stopped and I walked backwards to give them some space. And then they just kind of walked, or continued on their path like I was some kind of obstacle that was there. They didn't really expect it and I needed to move out of the way. That's something that, that I find really curious. It's almost like the wildlife is so indifferent about your presence there that it feels like you're in some kind of 3D documentary.
• 11:59
  > Graham>Like the exact opposite of the, the Arctic foxes.
• 12:03
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, exactly. Completely the opposite. Yeah, yeah, the foxes, they're so curious about you.
• 12:08
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Like, one of the things that I find quite interesting is that the regulations here say that you need to give the fox a space. So you can't just go and walk up to them and ah, sit right next to them, which makes total sense. But what's really strange is that the foxes, obviously they don't know about human imposed rules, but also they come and walk towards you and in some instances they even make their burrows under human structures that are there. So for example, in this nature reserve there is a place where they put up like a big shelter tent and the foxes, they made a burrow underneath the platform they made to put the tent on. And that is right in the middle of a campsite. So as a human you would almost have to say, I'm not going to use the campsite anymore if I need to give them space. But they choose to go to places where humans are and they choose to be around people. And I find that quite interesting that they are very, they're very curious about people. They're not afraid at all. And sometimes they will walk up to you so close that you can't even take a photo. Yeah, I have one instance where I was kind of like I knew there was some fox activity in the area and I sat a little bit, this was up on a hill, where there was an Old platform where there used to be a house. And I went down to the beach to kind of give some space and just see what would happen. And after about an hour this adult fox comes running with a bird in her mouth.
• 13:48
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>I presume it was probably a female. And I run up the path to get a closer look where she's going and then suddenly there's about 15 Arctic fox cubs that come crawling out of the ground all over the place. So their den was much bigger than I thought it was. Yeah, they come crawling, crawling out of it and one of them ran up to me probably thinking that I was maybe the mom. He was sitting literally maybe like half a metre in front of me and I couldn't even take a photo. You know I was sitting there with my 100 to 500. I had a two times extender on. I was ready to take some distance, distance images from this and you know this was impossible but it was absolutely memorable.
• 14:32
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Memorable moment.
• 14:34
  > Graham>That's amazing.
• 14:35
  > Graham>Now one, one thing I do want to talk about, I mean spoke about it briefly and anybody listening to everybody listening, have a look at the blog because so I, I'm like humpback whales, one of my things. And Yuru put a blog out yesterday that we're recording this on the 11th of November about humpback whales off the west coast, Greenland. And the photographs, absolutely stunning. And obviously some of them are taken with a drone. So maybe you could tell us a bit more about what you're doing with drones. just your experiences in that environment with those animals.
• 15:16
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, I've been over the, over the last few years I've been using drones more and more. primarily for landscapes but for marine wildlife I find that they're very useful tools as well. because you know with whales you're always photographing them from sea level and obviously the most, most amazing thing is happening underwater. Yeah. So I decided to start using drones to try and kind of capture that a little bit more. And in the west of Greenland where I go in a place called Ilurisat, it's where the biggest or like the. Yeah it's probably the largest ice fjord in the world in the sense that there's a lot of ice calving from the Greenlandic ice sheet and there are really. I mean there are icebergs there the size of small towns.
• 16:08
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>it's kind of ridiculous what is floating around there but it's also, it's a Very, it's a very popular feeding ground for humpback whales. so, this year, when I went back in September, with a group on a photo workshop, we were very lucky that there was a, fairly large pod sticking around in the area, feeding. And at one point, this was on the second day, I think we, went to the boat. So we've chartered a boat for four hours to be on the water and our main focus was going to be whales because we had already been seeing whales. on the moment that we arrived in the morning that we were supposed to go on the boat trip, they were just sort of swimming in front of the hotel, which is kind of surreal. You know, you open up the balcony door and you hear them breathing. it's absolutely amazing. But then we went on to water and within five minutes we are next to this, pole of humpback whales and we kind of start following them around.
• 17:05
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And then at one point we realised they start, bubble nest feeding. So we see them, we see them dive and then you see all like a big flock of birds kind of going around. And at one point, and this is really amazing, is that you see all the birds, obviously they see something that we can't see and suddenly they all kind of swoop to one area and then you see the humpbacks kind of lunging out of the water, which is incredible.
• 17:31
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 17:31
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And the only thing I could think about at that point was how good would this look with a drone, you know, because anyone who knows about bubble nap feeding, you know that this little spiral, really, really beautiful. And we were so close to the airstrip of the airport that, technically the drone could not take off. So even if my intention was to fly only 10, 15 metres above the water, I just couldn't because we were so close to the airport. So for about three hours, we kind of just followed them around. We were photographing them as they went in between the icebergs and every time they would go north, almost at the edge of the restriction zone, around the airport, and they would go back again and then up again and back again. They're following, following the food. Very frustrating. Until in the last hour we had on the boat charter, the whales decide to swim away. we were following them, following them. I had a drone remote on, to see when we were out of the restriction zone, and then, finally managed to put the drone up and I got these really incredible images of the five whales kind of swimming next to each other. Unfortunately, we're not feeding anymore. But the images I got from that were really amazing. at one point I took a photo where you see the five whales are kind of in a line.
• 18:52
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>They're aligned with a small iceberg that's floating, which looked really, really good. And I really like using a drone like that. You know, like you can see something that you can't actually see from the ground. And these animals are so beautiful, to see. And, Greenland's a really great place for that. Well, a little bit later in the, in the trip, we, you know, these, the same whales were just kind of swimming around the area where the hotel was. And one morning I opened up my balcony door and I could hear the whales breathing, but I couldn't see them because the night before a lot of slush ice had been pushed out of the ice fjord. So you could hear them breathing. But there was so many small icebergs that you couldn't see their backs, emerge out of the water behind them. And I spent some time looking at them and then at one point I saw one, and then I realised it was swimming outside of this drone restriction area. So we are in a hotel based just at the edge of what this, like, you have to imagine it's like a big circle around the airstrip. We were at the bottom of that circle on the southern end and they were swimming outside of it. And I thought, this is it. This is the moment where I'm going to be able to take that photo that I've been dreaming about a long time, which is having this humpback swimming in between the ice.
• 20:13
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And we are, like, I see them go and I text the group who was just about to get ready for breakfast. I send them a text and I said, I've seen these whales. I'm going to this location. I'm running out now because I want to see where they are. I want to keep tracking them because if I lose them, we all lose them.
• 20:33
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 20:34
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>So I run. some of the people in the group, immediately got up from breakfast, took their stuff, ran out of the hotel, went to this place. I was already there. And I managed to follow the whale out of town. So to run for like two kilometres to get there, and then we're sitting at this viewpoint and then I find the whale. and turns out there were two whales, not just one, I just couldn't see the second one. Yeah, and they were kind of very slowly going in between the ice and sometimes they would kind of stick their heads out next to an iceberg. And everybody in the group got amazing shots of that. It was absolutely amazing. You can photograph whales anywhere on the planet, really. but there are not very many places where you can photograph them with something extra to it, like you don't have the icebergs around it.
• 21:22
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And I feel like that's something really special to me, something I've been dreaming about for a while.
• 21:28
  > Graham>that's what struck me about those photographs, just seeing them with the ice, because I'm seeing them a lot off the coast of Sydney, but we don't.
• 21:34
  > Graham>We don't have too many icebergs, you know.
• 21:39
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah.
• 21:40
  > Graham>Environment for the. For the whale spin. I think that's an important part of the story as well, showing the different environments the animals live in.
• 21:47
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>It's pretty incredible, you know, like, these icebergs, they are enormous. Like, the fraction that you can see above the water in this area of the world is about 20% and 80% is underwater. And what's really interesting is that, the whales are almost playing hide and seek with us. Like, the first evening on that trip, we are standing on the edge of the ice fjord and we've been there for, what, I think we were there for two hours already or something, photographing the icebergs. And then suddenly, out of nowhere, three humpback whales appear, metres off where we are standing, and nobody had seen them.
• 22:26
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 22:27
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>So we are. We are flying drones over the icebergs and everything, and the water is very clear there.
• 22:32
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Nobody had seen these whales that just kind of appeared out of nowhere. And that's, That's what makes this really tricky in this, in Greenland, is that, there are a lot of whales around, but you might not be able to see them just because of the icebergs.
• 22:45
  > Graham>Yeah. So breeding ground. So they. They will go to the area and then they'll be there for a few months before.
• 22:53
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yes. They usually arrive around the middle of June, sometimes earlier, and then they will leave middle of September. but, you know, this is. It really depends on where the food is going. If the ocean temperature starts dropping, the food moves away and then they follow the food. Really?
• 23:13
  > Graham>Yeah. Yeah.
• 23:16
  > Graham>So one thing that struck me, or one question that occurred to me while you were speaking, you've had some amazing encounters. Encounters. Are there any that really stand out for you? Whether it's an encounter with an animal or a photograph that you were able to take, something that we haven't already discussed. Is there anything that stands out?
• 23:35
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, definitely. I think last year last year we had. I was in Eastern Greenland on a sailboat expedition. This was the, the first time I ran this photo workshop. And we are. So the way this trip goes is you fly on a charter flight, you go to a very remote area in East Greenland and then you get on a sailboat and from there you're basically disconnected from the world for seven days. And what happened then was within, I think we were what, maybe 14 hours into the trip or something. we sailed through the night to a glacier front that's really beautiful. And after we went to that glacier front, m. I think about an hour after we had breakfast, the captain comes to me and he says we may have a polar bear further up. we've seen something. but you know, it's probably a good idea to get the group ready so they have their cameras ready. But we don't know, you know, we don't know what's going to happen. So you have to imagine this location in Greenland.
• 24:43
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>It's all rock, so polar, bear, you think it would stand out but it doesn't really because it sort of blends into the rock, the colour of the rocks there. and sometimes when you approach them, they see you coming from a long way. They might even smell you from a long way. Sometimes they will just jump in the water and they start swimming. so he's very careful about it. the boat kind of drifts closer and closer to it and we start seeing it. And in the beginning we have the camera. I'm using the R5 with my 500 and then I have a two times extender on it. And then if I cropped in on the image that I took then you could see that the polar bear just lying on the rock. We're getting closer and closer and keep taking photos as closer that we, you know, every time we got closer I take new photos in hopes to get something really good eventually. And suddenly when we were almost close, the polar bear gets up and he jumps into the water. And we thought at that moment we must have scared him or something.
• 25:52
  > Graham>yeah.
• 25:52
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And he starts swimming. And what was really interesting is that I only found out after the trip, when I got home and I started looking at all the images that we were no part in whatever happened there. because so my R5 took 15 shots every second.
• 26:10
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 26:10
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And if you look at those 15 shots of the sequence of when he's jumping into the water, there are about four photos where you see the head of a seal sticking out of the water in front of him.
• 26:21
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 26:21
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>So he was very clearly, he was hunting. He was probably maybe wasn't even paying attention to us.
• 26:27
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>He got up and jumped for the seal. he didn't manage to get it because we didn't see the seal again after that. and most of us didn't even, you know, other than these photos, nobody even knew there was a seal there. but the polar bear swimming. And I'm thinking already, you know, we're not going to see him again because you see his little head on the water, it's a little bit wavy, it's impossible to take photos. And he swims past an iceberg and the whole group is in front of the boat. And I jokingly say, you know, what's going to happen now? He's going to stop, he's going to climb out of the water, he's going to pose for us on this iceberg, you know, to keep everyone, like a little bit motivated. And he swims past the iceberg and then stops. And I'm trying to compute what's going to happen there.
• 27:17
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And I'm like, no way, no way this is going to happen. And the polar bear climbs onto the ice out of the water. And it's amazing how they do this.
• 27:27
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Like, I managed to take some photos of, you know, how the, how he walks on the ice and it's incredible how he can just. He's completely wet and then crawl out of the ice on top of something super slippery and he starts shaking off all the water on his fur and then starts further climbing on the ice. At that point, I think my brain is already melting because of the excitement. And, he crawls up onto the edge and that's when I noticed there is, you have the iceberg and there is a hole in the iceberg that you can look through. And I'm just like, no way, no way he's gonna walk through this hole or something. And he walks behind the hole and then sticks his head through, looks at us and, you know, everybody's taking photos to their heart content. This was incredible. You know, have this bear on this amazing blue iceberg and then he sticks his head through a hole, you know, what more do you want? And he walks further on, and then sits on top of a place. And now I realised what he was doing. He was trying to find the seal again from a higher vantage point. Yeah, we didn't realise at all and we kind of drifted closer the Captain had switched off the, the engine, so we just kind of drifted and the polar bear sitting there, we spent, I mean we spent quite a bit of time with him, photographing him from every possible angle.
• 28:53
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 28:53
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Until at one point he decides to walk down and that's when I got these really amazing photos of the, of the polar bear kind of climbing down on the ice. And then he went swimming again to see if we could find the seal apparently. And that was just incredible. And you have to imagine this is less than 24 hours into a trip of seven days.
• 29:14
  > Graham>Wow.
• 29:14
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>So you're just like, okay, if, if you, if you go back and take us back to the airport right now, everybody will be happy.
• 29:24
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 29:24
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>This is this is absolutely unbelievable. and by far I think one of the most exciting encounters I've had with any kind of wildlife, I think.
• 29:34
  > Graham>Yeah, well, you run workshops so.
• 29:39
  > Graham>If for people who are really interested in what you do and where you do it as well, what's available for people, how can they come and join you and do you teach them technique as well as taking them to places?
• 29:52
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah. So, one, one of my favourite ones is probably the puffin focused one. which I do on a remote island off the north coast of Iceland. we stay there in a small guest house. It's actually the house of one of the locals. There's about 30 people living there, which is very nice because it gives you, I like, you know, for me, workshops.
• 30:11
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>They should be an experience as well as focused on photography. And it's really interesting, you know, to spend time with someone who lives in such a small island community. but then basically the structure of that workshop is that we go out every day, we go hiking around the island, find based on the weather, the most interesting spot to photograph, the puffins. And for me this is a really important workshop because if you're into wildlife or you're thinking about getting into wildlife, or you want to really try and perfect your skills, then this is the best place to go.
• 30:52
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Because what we do is basically rinse and repeat.
• 30:54
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>So you go photograph the birds. The morning after we sit down and we talk about three images that you really liked and three images that you thought this doesn't work and want to know why it doesn't work. And then we kind of in group, we kind of break it down, talk about what you should be doing different, how you should be handling it and then we go and try it again and we do that about Six days we're on the island focusing on that. And I feel really important that, you know, everybody has their own approach. There are some people who go and do workshops on this island and they kind of just, you know, you just kind of go out and do your own thing. Yeah, I find it's really important to. You know, you can't, for example, you can't be five people photographing the same birds. But we try to stay within. Within a reasonable amount of space, along the cliffside. So you can come and ask me questions so I can help you in the field.
• 31:50
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah. and I think that's a. It's a really, really exciting workshop for me as well, because I love to see how people go from maybe not knowing anything about wildlife photography to becoming really good at it. Yeah, because you can do repetition, you can do constantly. and it's a.
• 32:10
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>It's a great place to see how people improve. then I do also, all the green workshops. They're not. I mean, that's sort of a blend between landscape and. And wildlife, I would say wildlife primarily being the whales. on the eastern side, on the sailboat trip. Then, of course, we have a chance for polar bears. But there's absolutely never any guarantee that you're gonna see a polar bear. But these are kind of, you know, for me, it's very important to try and teach you in the field how to do this. And usually we have enough time to handle that. And then I also have a Arctic fox workshop, where we do the same thing, the same approach as the puffin workshop, where we go out every day, to see if we can find the foxes to photograph them, and then try to evaluate the images you took and see how we can improve them. And what I find is that most of the time, within the first two days, people get a good sense of how to compose and how to shoot. and the vast majority of the problems are editing problems. Like, most of the time people take a beautiful photo but then kind of wreck it with editing. So I spend quite a lot of time on what's a good way to edit images, like, what makes it a compelling image. and try to kind of. You know, everybody has their own style, but I try to steer people within their style to, getting really great results.
• 33:41
  > Graham>Yeah, I like what you said about seeing the improvement in people. One thing I love from when I teach is just seeing the change in someone when they realise that they can do something that they wanted to do for a long time, that thought was beyond them. Then all of a sudden the penny drops.
• 33:57
  > Graham>They realise that they can shoot that kind of image and, they can do it again and again. And it's. That's, that's,
• 34:03
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah. And there's no, no better way to, to teach them being out in the field, I think, because, you know, there's so many YouTube videos where you can learn all about settings and photograph, like how to photograph birds, for example, and how to compose them. But to apply that to your own environment is very, very difficult to go from that video to doing it out in the field. when you're out in the field, then you have someone standing next to you that can tell you, you should try and change this or try to position the bird more in that way. That's a invaluable thing. I think, it's the most important thing you could be doing.
• 34:43
  > Graham>Absolutely. And I think it's one thing watching a video, anybody can do that, but you've then got to go and apply it. And then when it doesn't give you the result that you were expecting, you need really someone to guide you as to what, okay, what do you need to do next? What do you need to think about to change it?
• 35:00
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Exactly. And I just wanted to add, like, for example, with the puffin workshop, that, some people sometimes give me the response, like, my God, what are we going to do there for six days?
• 35:14
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Isn't it easy to take a photo of a puffin? And then if I show them all the images, because that's how I start the workshop, I give a little presentation and I show all the ways you could be documenting them, then people are like, oh, okay.
• 35:29
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>There's a lot more to it than just taking a photo of a bird. You want to have them in certain interactions with each other. Maybe you want to have them with fish. sometimes they're there with shrimp. Maybe you want to shoot them in fog, in rain, you know, if it's really windy, they start behaving, really differently. And for example, birds in flight, that's something very difficult to learn on the silent. I found a really good way to teach anyone to find a good way to, to do that.
• 36:01
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And I find, you know, in six days, I can guarantee you you will never, you will not get bored of it at all. Even though it might sound like it's something really simple, to do it really well, you need to spend time on it. That's just the reality.
• 36:18
  > Graham>What would be your advice to anybody who is either thinking about getting into Wildlife photography, you know, for their own pleasure or maybe someone who is struggling a little bit with it, they're just not, not getting the results that they, they would hope to get Whooped. What would you suggest to someone that they start to think about if they're getting into adlike photography?
• 36:39
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Well, I think the thing that I often see is people get lost in gear. because something I see a lot on YouTube for example is photographers who do this professionally probably have really high end lenses and the problem is almost never the equipment. Sure there is, you know some camera bodies have much better autofocus than others.
• 37:03
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Especially now with all the eye tracking and everything. But the problem is usually not the camera, it's how you use the camera. And one thing that I find to make it really simple is I focus. I use a lot of custom modes on my, on my camera. So I programme the C1, C2, C3 buttons in a certain way that they are ready for wildlife. So for example my main wildlife one I've set to one over 2000 a second, shutter speed, widest aperture possible, eye tracking, servo, autofocus, these kind of things, auto ISO. And what that does is it takes away from you trying to, you know, you losing yourself in the technical side of it.
• 37:50
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Focusing on learning the composition. And I think that's the most important thing to learn is the composition. You can set your camera. There's no shame in setting your camera in doing almost everything automatic. I set my camera to basically the only variable thing when I do wildlife is the shutter speed and everything else. I just let the camera figure out so I can focus on doing what's important and that's capturing the right moment.
• 38:17
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And I think that's the most important thing is get a good zoom lens, get a body that has good eye autofocus tracking, set up a custom mode and then focus on being out and shooting. Yeah, and the single biggest mistake I see people make is give up too early. Yeah, you need to spend time in it, you need to spend time on it and the more time you spend on it the better you'll get.
• 38:42
  > Graham>Yeah. And, and there is, where we learn is where things don't go as expected. And I think that's something to also embrace. Don't get put off by that. Just learn from things not coming out the way you thought because.
• 38:57
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Exactly.
• 38:58
  > Graham>We've all had lots of that.
• 39:00
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, exactly. Because that's why on my workshops I want to see your worst images because that's where we can then talk about why are they the worst images? Or if you have an image where you say, like, I like this photo, but it doesn't quite work. Well, that's something that I hear a lot.
• 39:18
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>And then we can talk about why that is. Because for most people it seems to be very difficult to put in words why something doesn't work.
• 39:28
  > Graham>Exactly.
• 39:28
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>and that's the, that's the thing that, ah, I think is the most important to learn is understand why things don't work.
• 39:35
  > Graham>Yeah. Because as you may, as you get more specific about what is wrong with the image, you can then begin to identify this is what you have to do differently. You've got specific things you can change and then you can become consistent, producing high quality images. If all goes well.
• 39:53
  > Graham>before we finish, is there anything else you'd like to say or share, before we wind this up?
• 40:00
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Well, I think, one of the things I also sometimes hear is that people, you know, I go to places like Greenland, I spend a lot of time in Iceland and they are incredible places, but don't feel like, a good wildlife photo, is because someone is in an amazing place or is showing an incredible animal.
• 40:22
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>A good wildlife photo, for me at least has more to do with how well it was composed, how unique the images or, like how unique the moment is that you capture. And you could start in your backyard and try it. You don't have to go to any, you know, you don't have to go photograph polar bears on the North Pole, you know, to, to get compelling images. You can start anywhere. There's animals everywhere.
• 40:46
  > Graham>Yeah.
• 40:46
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Just have to look for them.
• 40:48
  > Graham>Absolutely. If you do, if you do that practise at home, then when you do get see polar bear, you know. Exactly. You don't want to be amazing.
• 40:58
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah. You don't want to be freaking out the moment you see a polar bear and then not know what to do because the moment might be very fleeting. You might only see it for one minute. Who knows?
• 41:09
  > Graham>Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for spending time with me and, I hope everyone's found this as interesting as I have. for everyone listening, please take a look at the website Instagram. Be inspired. We will get inspired by each other. It's one of the nice things about photography and, maybe explore doing a workshop. So, thanks again, Yuru, and, have a great day. It's evening here in Sydney, but you're just getting started.
• 41:38
  > Yuru Van Nievenhofen>Yeah, I'm just getting started. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure to speak to you.
• 41:42
  > Graham>Absolute pleasure. Bye now. Oh, and one thing just before you go, please take a Look at the 2026 wildlife calendar that's available now. It's on the website. There's a link below the description of this podcast episode, so please take a look and I'll speak to you next time. Bye.