Local Photographer Andy Belcher shares his personal photographic and technological journey…
An underwater start
My first overseas SCUBA diving trip in the early 80’s was to Papua New Guinea. The beautiful colours of coral and small reef fish triggered an emotion in my brain telling me I had to photograph this. Soon after, I purchased my first underwater film camera, a Nikonos 4a. On every dive I switched to “A” for auto, imagining my photos would be masterpieces. I was very wrong and lucky if I got one good photo from my 36 film frames. This frustration saw me studying and seeking advice on how best to take great pictures underwater.
Early success
Halfway through a dive I suddenly began to understand the relationship between ambient light, aperture and shutter speed needed to create the correct background exposure. By combining this with different power settings on my twin flashes I made a huge leap forward and created some very nice colourful images. On my first attempt I won the title “Australasian Underwater Photographer of the Year 1987” and flew to Sydney for the awards evening.
Over the next ten years I tried to perfect my craft. My efforts were rewarded when I flew to London to accept from Richard Attenborough, a first-place award in the British Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition. My winning photo of Boris the grouper was taken in Vanuatu and travelled the world in exhibitions of winning works.
Passion, perfection and obsession
Photography was fast becoming my obsession. As a perfectionist I constantly strived to create “wow factor” images never seen before. People were noticing and I started getting work enquiries from different types of adventure operators. I decided to make photography my career, just as equipment was moving into the digital era. I can remember saying “it will never be as good as film” but I soon had to eat my words! I bought my first digital camera and just being able to see my photographs straight after shooting was enough to convince me.
Doing well in photography is all about versatility
I have gained experience and expertise in underwater, adventure, commercial, weddings, landscapes, wildlife, tourism, children’s books, photo stock, presentations, newspaper features, hosting photo tours, running workshops and private tuition. This variety of work has created many different opportunities and kept me motivated. In 1995 I was commissioned by TVNZ’s Natural History Unit in Dunedin as the photographer for a 13 part South Pacific documentary called Deep Blue. We travelled in the yacht Evohe from the sub Antarctic Auckland Islands all the way up to a remote Solomon’s atoll near the Equator called Otong Java. It was nine months of my life I will never forget.
Technological changes
I find it very difficult to resist the latest camera model when I know it will offer a vast improvement over what I am using now. Do I even need an SLR camera when I can take stunning panoramas on my phone? For me as a professional the answer is yes. There is a difference. The 74-megabyte raw images from my Nikon D810 can be so wonderfully enhanced it’s sometimes hard to believe I actually took them. My Adobe Lightroom program enables me to stitch together up to 9 differently exposed images as HDR (high dynamic range) creating beautiful detail in the shadows and the highlights.
Technological advancement
Over the years I have also many times wished I could put my camera just up there as a slightly higher view would be so much better. Now I can. I bought my DJI quad-copter for my own entertainment never guessing it would lead to so much commercial work. Its outstanding camera can stitch together up to 10 images in Lightroom to create stunning panoramas.
The other delightful advancement in the latest SLR cameras is their ability to shoot amazing quality images at very high ISOs (film speed). In the days of film most photographers would never dare to shoot anything faster than 400 ISO as the images would have lousy colour and be very grainy. The latest SLR’s will now give great results at up to 12,800 ISO. When new technology allows me to advance my creativity why would I not embrace it. Bring it on!
By Andy Belcher
021 444 830 | photos@andybelcher.com | www.andybelcher.com
I write for this magazine because its always full of interesting stuff!
