Latest / The Shed Organics Show / #19 - Capturing Nature In Full Flight | Sam Hall

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#19 - Capturing Nature In Full Flight | Sam Hall · The Shed Organics Show

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Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the
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Shed Organics Show. Today's guest is a young and up
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and coming wildlife naturalist phenomenon.
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That's what I'm calling him. He's a really, really
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interesting guy. His name is Sam and I came
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across his profile with some amazing wildlife photography.
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Now he's only 17, still in school at the point in time
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where this is coming out. And a big part of what I love to
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do is highlight some of the youth, I guess, and, and talk up
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the next generation in, you know, nature awareness, I guess
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is what I would call it gardening.
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All of the things that I love talking about people that are
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passionate and that are, you know, youthful and motivating,
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inspiring and hopefully trying to make more people, more young
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people get involved in this kind of space.
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And Sam is definitely one of those people.
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So I really wanted to highlight him and get a get a chance to
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understand what makes him tick and how he got into doing all of
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this cool stuff. I thought going into this that
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he was just, you know, I wouldn't say just a wildlife
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photographer, but solo focused on wildlife photography.
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But there's so much more to Sam's story, which you'll find
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out very, very soon. And all of the things that he's
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involved in, he's already got a wealth of knowledge and an
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understanding and a relationship with nature that a lot of us are
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still trying to to connect with or get back to.
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So let's jump into it. Let's see what Sam has to say.
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I'm sure you're going to enjoy this conversation.
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So without further ado, here is Sam Hall.
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Talk to me about wildlife photography as like something of
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an interest at such a young age like it.
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Were you exposed to that? Like was someone else in your
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family into it or it's someone you know or how did you find it
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as a thing to do and why is that now a passion thing it?
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Was definitely from like a very young age.
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My dad has like a degree in marine biology.
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He goes like works with zebra fish and stuff.
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So I remember some of my earliest memories, which is
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animals in general would like go over to his workplace and
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there'd be occasionally like stonefish or like cone sails in
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these tanks and it'd be really cool just to look at.
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And then I remember we also watched a ton of mainly David
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Attenborough as well, which really like sparked an interest.
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And we talked to a, a couple of my dad's work friends as well
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who run the Queensland Nationals club.
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So we'd go out with them and go on all these camps and like
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different trips to like go find a ton of animals.
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So we'd spend like weeks at a, oh, like a week at a time in
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these like different locations, finding all these different
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animals. And like, the most fun part was
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just like from like 5 years old, just going out and trying to
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like catch a skink somewhere, find some like rare frog at
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night. Yeah, I was.
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Yeah. That's awesome, man.
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That's exposure like at its finest, Dad taking you out on
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all sorts of trips and expeditions.
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Like that's being fully immersed in it, isn't it?
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From like and appreciating nature and animals and
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everything that you're seeing and having other people around
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that are really interested in it makes you kind of go like soak
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all that up and get the excitement of it as well.
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Are you like, I guess like we just taking photos of the
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experience once you kind of got to an old enough age to kind of
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go and want to capture this? Is that how it works?
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Obviously I didn't, I didn't even think of taking photos for
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the first like up until like maybe a couple of months ago.
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I would, I'd go to all these camps and honestly my, my point
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was just, oh, I want to catch this animal.
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I want to like hold a frog. I want to like say I was very
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like hands on, like I want to go and do this.
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And then I think it started around November last year.
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We also, we have like an old Nikon camera and we got like for
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really cheap, this old 300mm lens.
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And I thought it'd be fun to just go around and take some
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photos, see how much I could actually capture with this
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thing. I remember specifically a
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rainbow Lorkey had like landed on the fence really close by and
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I tried to take a photo and immediately like I saw how close
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I was able to get with that lens.
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And I was like, thought, wait, maybe I can actually like go and
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find more birds. I can actually get these photos
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that I've seen in these like field guidebooks and stuff.
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I wonder if I can do that for like a ton more species.
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And then I kind of just like honed it in.
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I bought better gear like a month later and you get it.
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Been doing that for like only five months or so now.
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Yeah, well, it's crazy how good you are for having done five
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months and but like, like you say, there's a lot of these.
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I mean, it's not taking any credit away from you as a
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photographer, but a lot of these cameras and lenses do some
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amazing. Like you said, they can just
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zoom right in and get some wicked detail.
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Pretty not easily, but like relative like they're very good.
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So when you're equipped with the right gear, you have to spend a
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lot of time getting to know that gear practicing with it and
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trialling all the different things working out.
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How do I get the best lighting? How do I stop it from being
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blurry? All of these simple things that
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most people don't really think about.
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Once you see that final shot, tell me why.
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Like, why birds? Because they seem, I mean, I
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love birds and have had a big upbringing with like my my
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grandmother was very, you know, good at identifying birds.
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She'd take me bird watching sometimes and just kind of like
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go and try and figure, find some species and see some rare ones.
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And things like the Kingfisher was a big one that we used to
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love. Like I think I saw a photo of
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that on the Yeah, but definitely one.
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Of my top birds had so much fun because that's so like colourful
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and when you actually see them that just pop like blue in the
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green. Yeah, true.
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It's so nice, isn't it? So like that one specifically
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for me. But why?
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Like why birds specifically, I guess.
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And like, how difficult are they to take photos of?
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Birds. The main reason I started with
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birds was just because they were there.
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There was something that was like everywhere that I was like,
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Oh yeah, there's a bird on the fence.
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I can take that. It was something I could go
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anywhere and find different birds no matter where.
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Whereas originally, like I started off being mainly
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interested in reptiles like snakes and lizards, especially
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that I found there's like snakes were a lot harder to find.
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If I only went for snakes, I'd have like 3 photos on my
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Instagram at the moment. But birds, yeah, I got that like
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lens. I saw the Lorikee.
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I just went around, I went around the park at the bottom of
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my road and tried some Magpies and stuff.
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And since then I like, I've never really like thought about
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birds as like that interesting until then.
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I like saw them like, oh, it's a cool bird.
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And then you really, once you're taking the photos, you start to
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like recognize the bird species. You start to like learn about
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them because you're like, oh, what's this bird?
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Let me look it up and it becomes so much more interesting.
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And then you get like the challenge in it too, because a
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lot of them are like very fast moving.
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You have to learn how to like use, get your settings properly
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so you can capture the like split second moment.
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And it's just it becomes more just more interesting, more
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challenging and more rewarding. That's really cool.
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I yeah, I totally can relate to the interest that you get from
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it once you start diving into something a little bit more
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like. And then, yeah, you get, you
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know, well, for me, I get obsessed with different things
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and I'm just like, oh, and then you can go do this and figure
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that out. And so then you end up getting
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all of this understanding just by watching because essentially
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that's what you're doing and you're observing nature and just
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trying to capture different behaviours or different things.
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Like it's also nice to just, you know, you just see them like
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having no idea their pictures being taken, just doing what
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they naturally do and they just look amazing.
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It's really nice to be able to capture that in detail that not
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many of us get to get to see with the frogs and the reptiles,
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man. Like, yeah, I have to mention
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the fact that I saw you with that snake, like just picking
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one up. But I think you said, oh, it
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like looks like a pet or something.
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But or like I just, I'm a pretty, you know, cautious
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person when it comes to snakes. I'm not going near 1 if I see
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one. Like how do you pick one up and
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just have that confidence? Or is it that exposure you've
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been into like the whole time doing?
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A lot to do with the exposure, like I was never at a point
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where like people in my life like, oh, yes, thanks.
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It's scary. You should be scared of them.
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You should try to avoid them. It was always like all of this
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like interesting thing that we should like learn more about get
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to know more. But the one specifically I
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picked up was more of like a special case.
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I remember we were checking Facebook, it was about February
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last year and someone had posted on like the local snake side
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that they'd seen a wormer Python up on Mount Kootha.
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So we're looking at that. And they're not a native species
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to the area. They live like further north.
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So like, it was obviously somewhat pad that's like
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released and it wasn't going to survive out there.
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So we got up at like 5:00 AM in the morning before I went to
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school that day, drove over to Mount KUSA when we spent like
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half an hour looking through like the bushes to try and find
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it. Then we found it.
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I picked him up, put him in the bag and we took him down to the
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RSPCA to get him rehomed. That's amazing.
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They're like, wow, yeah. A it must be insanely difficult
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finding a snake on Mount Kuta. Like it's a massive place.
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Unless you had some like, pretty detailed, like we last saw it
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here 5 minutes ago. It's like, you know, I found
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that. I find that just fascinating.
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And the fact that you can just go and pick it up.
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You obviously know enough about them from hanging out with dad
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and stuff and doing your own research to figure out that
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that's you can just go and pick that up.
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It's not like a brown snake, which you just posted about a
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brown snake, didn't you? Brown tree snake I got like 2
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days ago I went on a camping trip with one of my friends.
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It was storming, which is when we got to the site, it was
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completely storming. So like everything was drenched.
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Setting up the tents almost impossible.
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But literally I remember my friend was going out brushing
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his teeth by a Bush and he calls me.
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I was like, look, there's a snake on the Bush.
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So I had luckily I had bought my camera with I almost didn't
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because of how when it was. Yeah, I'm glad I did, because
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it's the first brown tree sake I've probably seen in my life.
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That's amazing. Yeah, Well, always pack your
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cameraman. You never know when there's
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going to be a, when there's going to be something to
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capture. But like, you're right, though,
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you don't see these things very often, especially the snakes.
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And you know, going back to what you said before about birds
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being more kind of common, how, how long are you spending out
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there trying to find some of these species to either, you
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know, whether it's like a mission that you're, you're
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going out to try and spot some or do some conservation work or
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whatever it is, or whether you're just trying to take a
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photo. How long can it take you?
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Like, how do you know where to look?
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Are you just waiting there until someone like some something just
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walks past in front of you? It really depends on the
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location, the species. So I'll go out for when I go out
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for birds, I usually have like a species in mind that I want to
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find and I go to a spot where I like check the E bird before E
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birds are really good platform. You get loads of people
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uploading their sightings. So you know, like, oh, this bird
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was seen this spot at this time. So I've got maybe spend probably
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about 3 hours as a sweet spot looking for like a species,
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photographing anything else I see on the way.
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Or sometimes I've got like two key spots that I'll just go to
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in the morning. If I've got nothing else to do,
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I'll spend like 2 hours down there trying to see what turns
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up and see if I get anything worth it.
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That's cool, And are you on your own?
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Well, it depends sometimes on my younger brother's got my like
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old lens that I started on now, so I'll take him with sometimes.
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Other times if I'm going for frogs, I'll go like really late
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at night for frogs like you, just I know where to find them.
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You can hear the call so they're easy to find.
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Only takes like an hour to go around.
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Get a few. I usually got my own legs.
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It'll be like late at night or go with a couple of friends but.
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That's crazy. You're going out into the Bush
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at night. Like obviously you feel
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comfortable with that enough, like just to kind of wander out
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and you know, if you see something.
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I think it goes back to what you said before about not having a
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fear behind things. I've got a couple of guests
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coming up. I don't want to do a spoiler
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alert because the episodes won't be out just yet.
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But there, you know, people that work with things like snakes,
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for example, and scary, seemingly very scary animals.
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And it's like for me, a big one for me is like definitely snakes
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Like I would be, I've never held a snake and it's just like this.
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It feels like an innate built in kind of fear.
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That's and a lot of humans have it right.
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It's kind of, it's one of the most common.
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If you said one of the most common things people are scared
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of, it'll be like snakes and spiders or something.
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And I think like growing up around somewhere where you're
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not taught this fear and you're taught more of a fascination, it
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comes. It's definitely like a genetic
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thing it seems because like you like yourself and probably like
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his dad the same. Like can he just go and pick up
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a snake if he wants to? That much of a problem with it,
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but he probably he wouldn't pick up on that like in the wild
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randomly. He would make sure like the
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control, it was a controlled environment.
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Fairpoint, same with you well. Yeah, most I don't have as much
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of an objection to like a wild snake if I know what it is, but
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like most of the time I wouldn't do it out of like the principle
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of you don't want to like disturb it or but the actual
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picking up. I don't really have a problem
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with it. I still think it's.
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So you don't have that fear. No, I I've actually, I've got
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my, I've got 3 pet snakes at the moment.
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What kind of snakes? I've got 2 spotted pythons and a
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warmer Python as well. Wow.
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It was I, I genuinely don't know why snakes particularly, but
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just ever since I was like a kid, I don't even remember when
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it started, but snakes have just been the, the peak like
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fascination for me. Like I've wanted to like, go
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hold them, go interact with them, go take photos of them.
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That like I said, that's the opposite of what I feel and like
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probably a lot of people feel so like if you've never felt it,
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it's probably hard to answer this question.
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But like, how do you have to kind of push past any kind of
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fear? Or are you just that's just
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learnt it's just easy for you? Like it would be for me to go
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and see like go near a bird or a dog, for example.
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I don't know, pretty. Much.
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It's pretty much like you'd handle any other animal.
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Usually. I don't see like a difference
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between it. It's just like you go pick it up
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and it's that like a dog or like something small like a Guinea
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pig or something. It doesn't.
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It doesn't really change based on what animal it is.
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Wow, amazing you get to learn the animal too.
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Hey and like. Yeah, you definitely get to like
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see the personalities of them, especially my 2 spotted pythons
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because one of them, one of them is like the tamest, the calmest
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animal you've seen in your life. The other one thinks anything
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that comes near is food. And it was like it'll try and
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bite you occasionally only only because it like thinks your food
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generally. Like it's not aggressive or
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anything, but it's still like the different, these two snacks
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look almost identical and one of them I can just stick my hand
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out, it'll crawl right up my arm.
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The other one I have to like be really careful, like manoeuvre
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it around so I don't get bitten. It's completely.
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Different, yeah, true. You'd have variants within
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species and like, yeah, I mean, you see it like with dogs is a
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really easy one for people to understand.
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They you have a relationship with a dog and even kids, you
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got twins or something. Two kids can be like twin
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brothers or something, can grow up completely different even
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though they might look the same. But that's a really interesting
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point, man. I think like with is that
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something you you kind of want to take a bit further, seeing as
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like it is kind of a niche thing to not be so scared of it?
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Is that something seeing being one of your big interests?
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Is that something you see yourself running with a little
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bit? Yeah, definitely.
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I have. I really want to go out to like
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WA or something at some point, get probably like a good macro
17:30
setup to get the snakes and stuff close up.
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And honestly, it'd be amazing to go out photograph lizards as
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well, like any sort of reptile really.
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Build like a lot more of that on my page.
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Still like keep with as many birds as well, but like just add
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like some more diversity to it and really hone in on snakes.
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Yeah, 'cause as you say, they are harder to find.
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So you'll get going hunting for snakes, you'll find a few birds
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you can take photos of on the way as well.
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Right, exactly. Yeah.
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Cool. Well let's talk a little bit
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about like photography for a second.
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This not being a a very photography based thing, I don't
18:12
want to dive too much down the technicalities of like taking a
18:16
photo and things like this. But tell me a little bit about
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your process of trying to capture a good shot.
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What sort of things are you thinking about?
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Like what are your top like? If you had to give me a a few
18:30
tips as a beginner photographer trying to take photos of
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wildlife in general. So I know you can get real
18:37
specific depending on what it is.
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But if I had my camera, I just bought some a lens or something
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and I wanted to start snapping a few photos.
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What are some hot tips? I feel like first of all, it's
18:49
always light. Light is like the most important
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thing you're going to get, especially with these like long
18:54
telephoto lenses, which you need to use for wildlife.
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They don't let in as much, even nearly as much light as like
19:01
most other lenses on the market. So you want to get on a bright,
19:04
bright sunny day, usually like early morning or late afternoon
19:08
when you get like some nice like warm light and a background as
19:13
well. Like you see a bird on a perch,
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you're going for that. You're trying to have like
19:18
sticks in the background and create like a really messy
19:21
image. You want to like manoeuvre
19:22
yourself where you're like moving around.
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So you've got like a clean, ideally like a green solid
19:27
colour background or depending on the type of shot you're
19:29
trying to get, obviously. But for those like simple bird
19:32
on a perch shots, that's really what you're going for.
19:36
Yeah, you can have that kind of like, well, I've seen on Yeah,
19:40
on your profile, it looks very clean because of the
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backgrounds. That's why like a bird flying in
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the sky on clear blue background looks really good, right?
19:49
Yeah, yeah. Got no distractions.
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It's just like the bird is the central subject, draws all your
19:53
focus in immediately and you really focus on the bird and
19:57
nothing else. So Col. well colour, background
20:00
and light two things to focus on what anything else that I could?
20:05
Definitely. I feel the important one.
20:08
There's obviously going to be shutter speed too.
20:09
You need the light as well to make sure you can have a high
20:12
enough shutter speed to capture the action when it happens
20:15
because obviously birds move insanely fast when they want to.
20:19
They can like, like I remember one specific instance, I'm
20:22
photographing one of those kingfishers on a perch and I've
20:26
got everything set up. I'm like taking the photos and
20:29
then it just takes off. It flies straight towards me.
20:32
I didn't, didn't even have enough shutter speed to like
20:34
capture the action. So I, I just have like a blue
20:36
blur coming towards me. It's going to be one of my best
20:39
shots. But yeah, I didn't have my
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shutter speed high enough. So I can.
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Yeah, you want something definitely above 116 hundredth
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of a second. That's great.
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Yeah, true. Because it's like happening so
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fast. So the shutter speed, the the
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bang, when it opens the shutter, it needs to be real quick.
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And like you say, you can be set up as much as you like and
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spending an hour finding this bird and then set up for like a
21:06
good few minutes or however long it takes to get the perfect shot
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and the angle and the, you know, the focus and everything and
21:12
then you blink and it's gone. Can't.
21:15
Tell you how many times you've been like been walking up to
21:18
this bird. I've finally found it after this
21:19
much time. Go to raise the camera.
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It's gone completely, completely.
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Left man, do you then chase it again?
21:26
Like are you trying to then track it down for a bit to see
21:29
where it lands and then kind of, I suppose you can if you can see
21:31
it, but. I mean, a lot of the time, yeah,
21:34
it's something I really want to go for.
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Definitely. I'll like sneak towards it,
21:38
towards it like occasionally like Crouch down and like try
21:41
and move towards it slowly. And then a lot of the time
21:43
they'll just like dot off into the Bush.
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They'll fly like way too far away and you just don't see them
21:49
again. Damn, yeah, that would be pretty
21:52
difficult. But like something like a frog,
21:55
like you said, you can find it easier.
21:57
And I mean, they can hop pretty fast when they want to, but
22:00
like, you can still track them, right?
22:03
Pretty much, yeah. Frogs are.
22:04
Frogs are way easier to get the photos of generally.
22:07
I feel like the main problem with frogs is finding them in
22:10
the first place because the conditions especially have to be
22:13
perfect for the frogs to come out.
22:16
You need it to be like raining, you need of like semi permanent
22:19
pool of water because they only come out when they're trying to
22:21
mate and then lay their eggs. So a lot of the time the park
22:26
that I go to to photograph frogs, that there's a specific
22:30
area of it that floods every time.
22:31
It like rains hard, but only when it's like flooded.
22:35
I can only ever find frogs. When you go down there, it's
22:37
like needy water. It's still raining.
22:41
Then you've got like tons of frogs and you just walk around.
22:43
They're not going to do much. So you can just like get really
22:46
close, take photos. But it's actually waiting for
22:49
those conditions. So I only get maybe four days a
22:52
month where the frogs are actually going to be out.
22:54
Yeah, true. It does make a big difference,
22:58
doesn't it? So you like you're not
23:00
necessarily going out into the field completely blind.
23:03
You, you know, when they like to be out where you're most likely
23:07
going to find them and like you said, using Internet sites where
23:11
people have done sightings and things like that.
23:13
What was that website you you said?
23:16
And is there any other ones that are good for this type of thing?
23:19
The E bird is like obviously the best one for birds.
23:22
You can upload your own stuff. I've uploaded a couple of mine
23:25
before but it's perfect because you can check any location,
23:29
check the time frame before like when the pictures were posted,
23:32
when the signings were seen and then if you want to go for other
23:35
stuff I naturalist is a good one.
23:37
I haven't used it too much myself but I know a lot of
23:39
people who do. Also you can get your like
23:42
pictures published in like papers and stuff from that one
23:44
too so it's always a good one to either check before or upload
23:48
your own stuff too. Yeah, I've definitely heard of I
23:50
naturalist before, but you said E bird is the other one, so.
23:54
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely my go to.
23:56
I use it anytime I go to a new spot.
23:58
I always like check over the list and see like what's
24:01
available, Yeah, whether or not I should bring my camera.
24:04
Well, you should always bring your camera.
24:06
We'll just work that out. And when you're a.
24:07
Camera. I think I learned that the other
24:09
day. That's great.
24:12
So like a lot of your photos you're taking obviously on good
24:16
gear, right? So tell me a little bit about
24:20
using say like if like I use my phone, right to take photos, my
24:24
iPhone, it's an older iPhone, but like if I wanted to try and
24:31
create sort of the best kind of photos on an iPhone, like or
24:35
some like a handheld phone or something like this.
24:38
What's is there any settings that I can change to make sure
24:42
it looks better? Or like it's pretty much a point
24:46
and shoot style isn't it? I'd like for phone cameras
24:50
definitely you can get you can get pretty cheap cameras where
24:53
you can like mess around with the settings and you don't have
24:55
to like buy all this like difficult gear.
24:57
I mean, even on phone cameras I'm I don't know, I don't use my
25:00
phone camera really. It's pretty bad but I don't even
25:04
use it to like take pictures of like myself or anything.
25:07
It's that bad. But half the time you press the
25:09
shutter it just doesn't take the photo.
25:10
I know on at least like newer Apple phones you can go.
25:13
I'm pretty sure you can change like aperture and stuff so you
25:16
have some control over what the photo looks like in the end.
25:20
But generally I feel like even investing in like a small like
25:23
$200 handheld camera if you can change the settings will give
25:27
you a lot of control. Like go for low aperture if you
25:31
want like in focus face, blood background or yeah you can.
25:37
I don't know how well you can change shutter speed on them,
25:39
but. Yeah, but that's a good point
25:41
though. Like the the phone is very,
25:44
you're very limited to what it can do, which is it's great for
25:47
just snapping something quick. But if you want something that's
25:50
probably a little bit better looking, then you need to go for
25:54
like, yeah, it's a better looking camera.
25:57
I feel like at the moment the biggest weakness of phones is
25:59
really just for zoom. Like if you got like something
26:02
really close up to you, frogs, you can honestly do all right.
26:05
I recommend the phone camera if you're like in the right light,
26:08
had a good flash on your phone because you can get up close to
26:11
them. But birds, I think are, yeah,
26:14
you're not going to do too well with that.
26:15
Struggle, eh? Yeah, yeah, definitely.
26:18
Are you using a flash? The frogs.
26:23
Yeah, I am. I've got I have been looking
26:25
into getting an external flash but at the moment I'm just using
26:28
my built in in camera one which works pretty well for me.
26:32
Although sometimes it casts like an annoying shadow on the bottom
26:35
of the image, so I have to like angle the camera until like it
26:38
fixes that, but apart from that it works pretty well for me.
26:42
That's cool. Yeah, Because you.
26:44
Well, obviously if it's dark you want to try and light up the
26:47
subject, but it's like some things like the light might
26:51
actually scare them away or things like this.
26:54
So you got to be, I suppose you got to be careful.
26:57
Unlike, unlike you said, you can't.
26:58
You don't want to get too close to some snakes if you're taking
27:01
photos of them. You want to just leave them
27:03
naturally and birds. Yeah, definitely.
27:08
Yeah. I mean the flash as well, it
27:10
gives it like like the nice black background, whereas
27:14
usually frosting me on like plants covered in leaves, you're
27:17
gonna have like all the distractions.
27:19
But with the flash it just illuminates the subject and you
27:22
get everything like black. So it helps the solid colour.
27:25
That works for birds too. True, I didn't even think about
27:28
that. That's very true.
27:30
Is it? What sort of species are you
27:33
chasing at the moment? What are you trying to?
27:35
What's your next like goal for taking photos?
27:38
My next goal is definitely the Azure Kingfisher.
27:42
It's the nice like bright purple with like an orange belly.
27:47
It's been like my nemesis species for a while because
27:49
every time I go after it, it just flies away immediately or
27:53
doesn't show up at all. I've been to a couple of spots
27:56
for it. I've like heard them calling.
27:58
I've even seen one like fly across the path.
28:00
Never gotten like 1 perched anywhere near me and I've been
28:04
like a ton of times so if I could get anything to happen in
28:08
like the next couple of weeks it would definitely be one of
28:10
those. That's so cool.
28:12
Well, beautiful birds, eh? So to be able to be graced with
28:17
their presence, considering they're not around very much and
28:20
stuff, then yeah. I mean, you like obviously
28:23
you're you're young, you're 7, you're 17.
28:26
Is that right? Yeah.
28:28
That's crazy. So last year of school.
28:32
Yeah, yeah, gradually at the end of the year, so.
28:35
That's amazing and it's so cool that, you know, I think I said
28:38
to you before, like I just want to highlight younger people
28:40
doing amazing things. Like it's so cool that you are
28:43
doing something so needed for younger people to start showing
28:48
how cool it can be and like what's amazing and what's out
28:51
there. Are you planning on doing
28:56
anything post school like for study wise in this area?
29:00
Yeah, I'm looking hopefully do some sort of degree involving
29:04
like actual like biology field work, going out, working with
29:08
the animals in the field, don't know exactly what yet.
29:10
I'm going to like hone that in. But yeah, definitely in that
29:13
area where I can also take the camera out, get something, get
29:16
some good shots while doing that as well, get all in one.
29:20
Yeah, that would be living the dream, wouldn't it, To be able
29:22
to go out and do all of that. I'm sure you can find stuff.
29:26
And, you know, I, yeah, still don't know what I want to be.
29:30
I'm always changing my mind. Yeah.
29:33
So like, you know, you can start try one thing, try something
29:36
else. But, you know, listen to me.
29:37
Or being old and not offering advice.
29:41
What I would what I wanted to touch on like about that is
29:44
like, are you with your social presence?
29:47
Like, I know you're kind of new into this, like only starting to
29:51
post photos last year, but it really, like, it stood out to me
29:54
already. Like, you know, like I said, how
29:55
how good you are. It is.
29:56
And what is your like, what are your plans moving forward with
30:01
the sort of the social media presence and what are you hoping
30:04
to achieve with like I guess photography and other things?
30:09
I mean, I definitely want to expand more on social media in
30:13
general. Like I want to start doing
30:15
YouTube as well. I feel like filming like actual
30:17
content, taking like behind the scenes, showing the processes,
30:21
getting photos and everything. Really fun.
30:24
Expanding to like more of a brand as well, more personalized
30:29
doing. I've got an idea as well.
30:31
I've started working on a trading card game featuring like
30:35
my own wildlife photos as well. But I want to get produced and
30:38
that's a great idea. Yeah.
30:40
I feel like at the end of at the end of the year as well, I'll be
30:43
graduated so I can go out, do like a bit of travelling for a
30:46
bit, go to all these new spots, get all these new species and
30:50
yeah, pretty much focus on that. It's like a big yeah bring like
30:54
surge and producing content and stuff.
30:58
I believe you because, you know, obviously you're under time
31:00
constraints at the moment with being in school.
31:03
So when you get that freedom to kind of go out there and you
31:06
might need to go away for a couple of days somewhere to go
31:09
and stay in a location and try and hunt something down.
31:12
And I can like at least vouch for myself.
31:16
I would definitely watch you behind the scenes going and
31:18
finding these, these things, you know, like just taking me along
31:22
for the journey saying hey, like this snake, you know, we're
31:26
going to go find this snake and you like sort of go through the
31:29
process of trying to find it. And then even the disappointment
31:32
of not finding it and then going, oh, like we've been out
31:35
here 2 days now and we still haven't found this goddamn
31:37
snake, you know, like that. That's awesome to watch.
31:40
I think that would be really cool, selfishly for me to see,
31:46
but I think we're. Going to have to do.
31:47
It Yeah, please do it. That would be that would be
31:50
really cool. What about, OK, let's go back
31:54
because I want to hear a little bit more about maybe not
31:59
necessarily like dad's work, your dad's work and things like
32:02
this, but more about some of the things that you were able to be
32:06
exposed to, some of the things that you were able to go on and
32:10
things like that. Do you have any other stories of
32:12
going out with with dad that have fun or interesting?
32:17
So mainly it was through like the whole Queensland Nationals
32:19
club we had. It was really useful because we
32:21
had all these like leading experts in like different fields
32:25
and different animals. So I remember specifically, it's
32:28
probably like 7 years ago or something now.
32:31
There was like this one, we were camping by some like watering
32:34
hole. It was like Al Qaeda towards the
32:36
Outback. And we had these like bat
32:39
experts who were setting up these huge like net traps and we
32:43
just sit around as like the bats would fly in and then they go
32:46
and this was like for their jobs and stuff.
32:48
I don't know exactly what it was, but pretty much they'd go
32:51
like find the bats, like record the species they'd like pick
32:54
them up out of the bottom of these traps, record all the
32:57
species and then they do like a little show and tell where they
33:00
get like all the IT was a lot of like a lot of very old people as
33:03
well. I feel like it's also that's a
33:05
pretty old people dominated field in general.
33:08
They'd like get all everyone together, like around the fire
33:11
and then show like the animals had caught in the traps, record
33:13
the data and then release them. And it was just really cool to
33:17
be able to get that close to like, these tiny microbats, all
33:20
these like, lizards I didn't know were out here, and frogs as
33:24
well. Wow, man, Like that kind of
33:27
experience is amazing. I know you say like you know, I
33:30
like I said, I jokingly talk about it as well-being like
33:33
something that you get into in later life, but having a
33:36
fascination with this. But I think that comes down to
33:39
the fact that you appreciate the little things, you appreciate
33:44
nature and you and you realize that that connection is what we
33:48
all need. And sitting, you know, like I, I
33:51
consider myself an old soul, I guess for that reason.
33:54
But I'd love to go, you know, sit around the fire and talk
33:57
about all these things and watch all these Beautiful Creatures
33:59
and that kind of thing. But like you said, you're loving
34:03
it and enjoying it at whatever you said before age 10, Like
34:08
that's it's just showing that it actually can be appreciated by
34:12
all ages, even though it does tend to be, I guess, like, you
34:18
know, those of us in later life that tend to gravitate towards
34:21
doing these things and have the freedom of time to be able to do
34:23
them. But do you reckon that's the
34:26
case as well? Are you are you thinking that
34:28
it's just like something that innately we want to go and
34:32
connect with people in nature and be out there and that kind
34:35
of thing? I think so, definitely.
34:37
I feel like everyone, kind of even everyone has like some sort
34:41
of appreciation for it, even if you don't realize that people
34:44
want dogs, they want cats, they want pets, some sort of
34:46
connection, like another living thing that isn't a person.
34:49
They keep plants as well. And then I feel like a lot of
34:54
people, yeah, don't get the chance to actually spend a lot
34:57
of time doing it until like, yeah, they get older especially,
35:02
I know as well, like a lot more young people definitely benefit
35:05
from going out looking at birds. That's so like, it's so
35:07
stereotyped. It's like, Oh yeah, you're too
35:09
young to be doing that. You'll go do that when you're
35:11
retired. And then, yeah, people don't get
35:14
into it until very late in life. So true.
35:17
How did you approach like I guess you know, friends are
35:22
people that support you no matter what, but how did you
35:24
approach people like at school and kind of how do you explain
35:27
to them what you do and do they find it cool or are they
35:30
interested or do they go, Oh, that's an old person thing or
35:34
like how do you how do you get reactions to it?
35:36
I. Mean you get the old person
35:38
thing as a joke most of the time.
35:41
But no, I've had a lot of a lot of positive reactions.
35:44
I know a couple of guys at school mentioned, Oh yeah, no,
35:47
my grandma follows you and she actually loves your stuff.
35:49
I've had a couple of my friends, but a lot of my friends I'll
35:53
actually go out with occasionally and do that stuff
35:55
with. Like some of them will come with
35:57
me and we'll go try and find a Kingfisher together.
35:59
We had, we went up to O'reilly's for a week the end of last year
36:04
and pretty much I'd go out like I'll bring my camera with
36:07
wherever we went on the walks and stuff.
36:09
People maybe like set up hold like a torch if we found like a
36:14
frog or something where I could like grab the shot and
36:16
everyone's, yeah, really helpful, very supportive and
36:19
actually like interested in it, which is really fun and it's
36:22
good to have those sorts of people around.
36:25
You're absolutely right. I, I guess like, you know, it's,
36:30
it's something that you don't see every day.
36:33
So your friends are going to be interested and like, if you're
36:35
passionate about something and you're like showing how cool it
36:39
can be, then it draws people in and they can get interested in
36:43
it. And then you can kind of you
36:46
just get like recognized for, for doing what you do and being
36:50
good or interesting at something.
36:54
Like, yeah, I guess the, what it makes me think of is kind of
37:00
the, you know, having, having supportive friends is obviously
37:04
a really, really good thing, but it just doesn't tend to be like
37:08
that in Monday society. We're trying, we're very often
37:13
like combative against each other.
37:15
We don't listen to each other's opinions and and we don't give
37:18
each other enough Pats on the back and claps for the cool
37:21
things that everyone's doing. You're in Brisbane, aren't you?
37:26
So like, you know, I, I went to school here as well and like,
37:33
it's so much is kind of, I guess changed now with social media
37:36
and being able to be on there as a as a presence from an early
37:39
age and kind of go, this is what I do.
37:42
Did you find yourself coming up against any anxiety putting
37:47
yourself out there? A lot of sorry.
37:51
It's definitely, it's definitely a feeling of it when you're like
37:54
putting out this content, especially when you get more to
37:57
like the thing of YouTube and putting reels your face in as
38:00
well. It's like actually showing more
38:02
of who you are, not just these birds, but it's definitely like
38:06
a fear as well. Like what are these people going
38:08
to think of everything that you're putting out?
38:10
But honestly, it's once you actually go through and do it,
38:13
it's really rewarding experience you don't get.
38:16
I at least haven't received any negativity at all on it.
38:19
It's all been positive and as well as well as that you meet
38:23
like through social media, you meet way more people who are
38:25
interested in the same things. Like I know people now that I've
38:29
met through social media who will like comment on all my
38:32
stuff, I'll comment on theirs. We'll support each other through
38:34
that. And that people that I would
38:36
have never even thought to like never even had the chance to
38:39
meet or interact with if it wasn't for like social media and
38:42
seeing that they're also interested in this particular
38:45
fields as well. So it can be, it has some
38:48
potential to be harmful, but it also can be really helpful at
38:52
the same time. I love that attitude, man.
38:54
That's really, really good. And even if you do get
38:57
negativity, like it's only a reflection of them, you're still
39:00
getting an overwhelming wave of positivity.
39:04
And it's just, I think it's just important to highlight because a
39:07
lot of people do have passions for things, whether they're at a
39:13
young, any age, really any, any kind of age.
39:15
They've got a passion and they're just a little bit kind
39:17
of intimidated to go out there on a limb and share it and talk
39:21
about it and post about it. And, you know, having more
39:25
people like yourself, like who you kind of go, yeah, it can be
39:29
a little intimidating. But as you say, like once you've
39:31
gone out and done it, there's so much reward that comes back from
39:34
it. Then you feel really good and
39:36
you find your tribe of people. You find more people that are
39:39
interested in what you do and then it gets really a whole lot
39:44
better and it gets really worth it for me.
39:51
Like I can, as I said, I can talk quite happily.
39:55
I don't. I'm not.
39:57
I really don't take a second thought to what people, I guess,
40:02
whether their judgments are good or bad.
40:04
As long as I'm having fun, I obviously want to make a really
40:07
positive impact. In a lot of ways and help as
40:10
many people as I can, but then I sort of take take each positive
40:16
and negative with a pinch of salt, like it is what it is, you
40:18
know, that's just their opinion. As long as I'm happy with doing
40:21
what I'm doing and trying to bring positivity and make
40:25
change, then that's the best thing.
40:28
Is there something that you like A like that where, where you
40:32
have like a purpose to kind of doing sharing the content?
40:35
Is that obviously we all want to try and, you know, broaden our
40:38
our horizons and get into new things and expand our careers
40:42
and all of this type of thing. But like do you with the whole
40:46
conservation thing and going out with the naturalist groups and
40:50
things, you've obviously got an appreciation for learning and
40:54
then sharing information. Is that something that you're
40:57
hoping to try and do as well? Yeah, definitely.
41:00
I think it comes down to a lot of as well, Like most people,
41:03
you'll walk down the street and you'll see like a magpie or
41:06
something and you're not going to, you're not going to give it
41:08
like a second thought. You're going to go, Oh yeah,
41:10
that's that's a magpie in the walk past.
41:12
Especially with like you see ibises and gulls as well.
41:17
They have like a reputation for being particularly like dirty or
41:21
like unhygienic birds. But as well, like if you see a
41:24
picture of them, you show like pretty much anyone, a picture of
41:27
them in like their natural habitat doing something amazing.
41:30
Like outside of like you really showed you like a different
41:33
perspective on the bird. And you see it as more than just
41:36
like an inconvenience with Magpies and especially plovers
41:40
as well, people go, Oh yeah, no, that's gonna swoop me.
41:43
I'm gonna stay away. Like I've talked to showing
41:46
people a picture of like a plover before and they go, oh, I
41:48
was the ones who are going to swoop me right and Peck my eyes
41:50
out. And it's like you show a
41:53
completely different side of the bird.
41:55
So people people learn that these animals aren't like
41:58
something unhygienic or something scary.
42:01
You get that a lot with snakes too.
42:02
Like you show them under a completely different lens what
42:05
they are in their natural habitat.
42:07
And it can really change people's perspectives on it, I
42:09
think. That's cool.
42:12
You're definitely trying. You're well, you're definitely
42:14
helping change my perspective on reptiles and, like, not to be
42:19
scared of them because like, that's yeah, as I said, an
42:23
innate kind of fear for me. Do you, do you see yourself kind
42:30
of doing Yeah, like you said, a more personal brand thing.
42:35
Like are you gonna kind of go out there and help share some of
42:39
like, you know, like one person I think of as Steve O and for
42:42
example, and everybody obviously knew Steve Irwin for doing that
42:47
type of thing. And he's kind of one of a one in
42:50
a million type person. But you can see his son Bob,
42:53
like he's obviously been talked about a lot at the moment for
42:55
different reasons. He's he's now like following in
43:00
those footsteps and kind of with that exposure being shown the
43:04
love and respect to all of these animals can go out there and,
43:07
you know, dance around with crocodiles and snakes and all
43:09
sorts of things. So it takes a certain type of
43:12
person is what I'm getting at to go out and do that.
43:14
And like I said earlier, I think do you know, do you see yourself
43:19
trying to really kind of encapture that type of person,
43:23
trying to dispel a lot of that fear through your content?
43:27
So definitely, really it's a lot about, yeah, showing what the
43:31
animal is really to like as many people as you can, really
43:36
showing that they're actually something that needs to be like
43:39
protected and that we need to learn more about.
43:43
Yeah. And pretty much just displaying
43:44
that to as many people as possible.
43:46
And if you get like a couple of people to go, wow, I didn't know
43:49
that. This is really interesting.
43:51
Didn't know those birds did that.
43:53
Wow, I didn't know snakes like that.
43:54
Maybe we shouldn't just kill all these snakes then.
43:57
Done do a job pretty much. You're right, man.
44:03
And do you have a favorite snake?
44:07
Yeah, definitely black headed Python.
44:10
I particularly, I think it was the first snake I ever held.
44:14
I remember I went to Lone Pine, I was probably like 5 or 6 and I
44:18
got to like hold a snake for the first time this huge like 2m
44:22
long black headed Python. And since then, yeah, they're
44:26
definitely my favorite snakes pieces.
44:28
And then not venomous. No.
44:31
Yeah, I wouldn't have thought they'd let a young child hold an
44:34
extremely venomous snake, but we we hold some pretty venomous
44:39
snakes in this country though, don't we?
44:41
Yeah, yeah, the, I think it's all of the top 10 most venomous
44:45
in the world. Might be slightly less, but at
44:47
least like the top three or four most venomous in the world all
44:50
live in this country so. Wonderful.
44:52
See, that's great news to know, but there's so many people that
44:57
can do something about it. Like, you know, you just got to
44:59
be aware of it. I have a snake bite kit, you
45:01
know, in my first aid kit, which I think everybody should have in
45:04
this country just in case. But like, have you had any close
45:09
calls with anything? Like, I know you'd probably hang
45:11
around your snakes that are not venomous and, you know, they
45:16
probably don't bite like or don't hurt too much when it
45:18
bites. But like anything, that's kind
45:20
of scared you a bit. Maybe once or twice I've had a
45:27
couple of close encounters with like one or two brown snakes,
45:31
like you'll be walking through like pretty deep grass and
45:36
occasionally it like stops your heart for like a second.
45:38
Like I'm not scared of like snakes in general, but still
45:41
like when you when you take a step forward and something like
45:43
zips past your foot, it's like that split second of always that
45:47
a brown snake. Am I going to get dizzy?
45:48
The occasionally I've only it's only been like pythons recently
45:52
that I've seen, but like still, it's a split second.
45:54
I'll take a step forward. Something goes over my shoe and
45:58
like in the second way, you're trying to figure out what
46:00
species it is. It's a little nerve wracking.
46:02
Yeah. And then there was one
46:04
particular incident. Again, I keep, I keep bringing
46:06
my dad back into. This.
46:09
No, it's cool. It was O'reilly's again, walking
46:11
down this track, and he steps over a red belly, black, without
46:15
noticing it. It goes right between his legs
46:18
and dashes off into a nearby Bush.
46:22
But it didn't even notice it and it came really close.
46:26
That's insane. Are you wearing boots and stuff
46:28
and long pants or? I definitely should be no
46:34
Usually I I wear boots one time. I always take always take snake
46:37
bandages with if I'm going for frogs.
46:39
Not so much birds because I don't like going to as many like
46:42
it's a long grass. But whenever I go for frogs I'll
46:46
take snake bandages and usually boots.
46:48
Occasionally if I'm like just trying to get out of the house,
46:50
I'll put Crocs on, which is probably not a good idea,
46:55
especially when I found I only found snakes when I'm going out
46:57
for frogs. So yeah, I know, like I know
47:00
that it's not a good idea, but part of me, it's like, it should
47:02
be fine, right? If anything goes really badly
47:04
wrong, I have the snake bandages.
47:06
So you're so brave. I do tend to agree though, Like
47:10
I'm not very well known for wearing a lot of footwear most
47:14
of the time, but Crocs tend to be my safety shoes.
47:19
Definitely. That's awesome, man.
47:22
So let's wrap up. Do you have anything that you
47:27
want to sort of talk about that's coming up or where can we
47:30
people go and find you and where's best for for them to
47:34
find your work? Apart from on Instagram where I
47:37
saw it, yeah. At the moment, yeah, just by
47:39
Instagram. Hopefully within the next like
47:41
week or so I want to get a YouTube channel up and running.
47:44
Cool, well it might be up by the time this episode comes out, so
47:47
if it is up I will link it in the comments.
47:52
Easy, yeah. But yeah, for now, that's pretty
47:54
much it. I'll hopefully have more stuff
47:57
in the future, maybe a website, but all that's yeah, a lot
48:00
further down the track. So for now, Instagram and maybe
48:03
YouTube. Brilliant, what an amazing young
48:22
man Sam is and thank you so much to him for his time to come on
48:26
and share his passions with us. I'm sure if any others of you
48:31
out there listening are, and in the sort of younger age
48:35
brackets, you might have found a little bit of inspiration and
48:37
ability to connect with Sam being, you know, only in high
48:42
school. It's amazing to see somebody
48:44
that's just so keen to get out there and start sharing the
48:47
passion and dispelling the myths and the fears that certainly
48:51
somebody like I has around snakes and reptiles.
48:56
So I'm very keen to follow along with Sam's journey and see where
48:59
he ends up. Maybe we can touch base with him
49:01
again in the future. Now again, as always, please go
49:05
and check out his links in the description below.
49:08
You'll find all of the links that he has and maybe his
49:11
YouTube channel as well if it's already out.
49:13
And you can find all of what he's up to, including the the
49:18
websites that he recommended. So we've got the E bird and I
49:21
naturalist sites that you can use to go and site do sightings
49:25
and find sightings and upload your sightings and pictures and
49:29
all sorts of things. So wonderful websites as well
49:32
there. And yeah, last but not least
49:35
from me, if you could give this show a rating, it would be
49:39
extremely helpful to help others find this show.
49:44
Any kind of rating would mean the world to me.
49:46
So thank you so much again for watching.
49:49
I'm very excited to see you again next week.
49:51
Take care.