I’m a wildlife photojournalist, my work and my personal project focus on stories related to wildlife conservation. I’ve seen first-hand the destruction left behind by the horrific illegal wildlife trade.
My fascination with documenting the last two remaining northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya began in April 2019 as I launched my personal project Kindred Guardians. The project tells the stories of people who have dedicated their lives to helping animals. The caretakers of the rhinos felt like a perfect way to launch the project.
In 2018, Sudan, the last remaining male northern white rhino passed away of natural causes at the Ol Pejeta conservancy in Laikipia County, Kenya thus signaling the end of the existence of their subspecies.
What is it like to shoot a travel assignment for a major publication? What’s the process from start to finish? Every publication is a little different but I’ll speak from my experience shooting dozens of assignments for The New York Times travel section throughout Southeast Asia for over a decade.
The biggest and most common mistake I see in photographers in all genres is that they aren’t honest with themselves. They love the idea of being a photographer -- the romantic side of it all. Sounds cool, right? But they hate the work part, the hustle, the grind, the guts of what it takes to run any successful small business.
Could you and would you shoot with a digital camera without an LCD screen that costs and arm and a leg? I spent two days in Singapore wandering the streets with the Leica M10-D and here are my thoughts.
I’m at a Starbucks in Hanoi. Typically it’s a peaceful location where I can write and think, but today it’s overrun with young people smoking cigarettes, occasionally smiling and laughing, but mostly consumed with their phones browsing Instagram and taking selfies to reload their feed with an annoyed older man in their background typing away.
This headline might come off a bit pretentious for some of you. I mean, how do photographers travel any differently than the rest of the population? Fair question, but for better or for worse, we are different in our own way.
I often teach new photographers to study the greats, both past and present. Study and be influenced, but please don’t aim to copy them -- I promise you that won’t get you anywhere.
So, you are about to embark on your first solo wedding shoot of your career. You’ve got butterflies in your stomach, you’re stressed, and the pressure is most certainly setting in. Don’t panic, read this carefully and you will be well prepared for photographing the most important day of someone’s life.
My daily stroll through the newly-built but already-decaying park near my apartment in Hanoi while listening to Spotify on a brisk (by Southeast Asia standards) morning has me in deep thought. We only get this type of weather for a couple months a year here and I absolutely love it.
What makes a pro photographer a pro? How do you do it? Do you just wake up one day and the photo gods anoint you a pro? Do you have to pass the pro photography exam and get some sort of certificate?
Over the years, I’ve joked frequently with my best friend Marc and my brother about things that are cocky in life. We sort of have this ongoing dialog pointing out cocky things and cocky people in the world, which is pretty cocky of us. They’ve also given me a lot of s**t since I became a photographer a decade ago.
I made this photograph a while back for a private client in Phuket, Thailand, who owned a stunning vacation home that she designed herself. She was drawn to my editorial style in my commercial work and she wanted me to take that approach for a series of lifestyle images at her home.
We spoke on the phone to prepare for the shoot, and she threw out the idea of hiring an elephant. I thought she was joking at first but when I realized she wasn’t, I jumped at the opportunity, I mean... how often do you get to have an elephant as a model at your disposal? (More on disposal later).
Every career has a reality TV show nowadays, from chefs to pawn brokers, but what about photographers? When I was asked to be the resident photographer on History Asia’s first home grown reality show about photography, Photo Face-Off, I jumped at the chance.
The show is regional only, filming in Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Indonesia. It was described to me as Iron Chef meets Amazing Race. The show has essentially made photography a sport and being a competitive dude I love this idea.