The Photography Nest: Beginning My Bird-Centric Journey

I can't articulate, not even to myself, why I fell in love with photography. I know why I took up the art (I was without a job and with lots of free time) but falling in love with it, well, that was an entirely different story and a surprise for me and for everyone who knew me.

As a child, I was an avid birdwatcher, and while I might have left the professional birdwatching path, my passion for these creatures never went away. So, starting to take photographs of birds felt like a journey back to my roots. I started slowly. My initial months photographing birds were all about using my camera as a logbook for my observations and aiding with the identification. After all, a bird in a snapshot is often (though not always) easier to identify than one out in the wild.

But then came my enlightening trip to Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, where nature, in my perception, blended with the ethereal imagery of traditional Japanese painting. It was there when I first found myself envisioning natural scenes as paintings, and paintings as scenes in reality. This, I now understand, may be commonplace for artists, but as someone with a strong left-brained orientation, it was a revelation. Suddenly, I felt compelled to convey, beyond the ornithological aspects, the essence of nature in a way that resembled the Japanese paintings I was so attracted to.

One of my first such photos is that of grebes running across the water's surface. This photo was taken at a serene, tiny lake (or an oversized pond, if you prefer) on Rishiri Island, just off Hokkaido. I had arrived there in the quiet stillness before dawn to witness the grebes partake in their morning rituals as first light broke. The successful result was my motivation to delve deeper into photography as an artform. This photograph, the hero piece in my Fleeting Moment exhibition (in Gallery 11:11 in Sydney), holds a special place in my heart. It was It was also the first photo I sold, and it remains among my all-time personal favourites.

This image is a limited-edition piece. That is, no more than 10 prints will ever be sold. If you wish to own a piece of this fleeting moment, you can find it in my shop here: https://www.ranfuchs.art/shop.