Meet The Pro: Mark Carwardine

Join Toby Jermyn in episode eight of the Pangolin Podcast as he hosts renowned wildlife photographer and conservationist Mark Carwardine. 

Here is a link to a gallery of Mark's images: https://pangolin.smugmug.com/SmugMug-Website/Website-Pages/Mark-Carwardine

Mark shares fascinating stories behind his top four chosen photographs, taken from diverse locations like Antarctica, the UK, and the Caribbean. The episode also explores Mark's journey, his thoughts on ethical wildlife photography, and the exciting, elusive shot that won Steve Winter the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year award. 

From humorous anecdotes to serious conservation discussions, this episode is a must-listen for photography enthusiasts and nature lovers alike.

Visit Mark's website: https://www.markcarwardine.com/

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The Pangolin Podcast was produced and edited by Bella Falk: https://www.passportandpixels.com

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Chapters

• 7:17 1st Image: Sperm Whale Underwater
• 15:10 2nd Image: Blackbird In The Rain
• 23:00 3rd Image: Girl with Grey Whale
• 29:35 4th Image: King Penguins
• 34:25 Inspirational Image: Snow Leopard by Steve Winter

Transcript

Toby: Hello, and welcome to episode eight of the Pangolin Podcast. I'm your host, Toby Jermyn. Thank you very much for joining me. 

Toby: In each episode, I've invited a professional wildlife photographer to imagine themselves in a remote location, and along with their camera gear, they're allowed to bring five photographs to hang on the wall of their humble dwelling. 

Now, four of these must be their own, and the final image is one they admire by another photographer. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can view the images as we talk for audio listeners on other platforms. There's a link in the description to a gallery. On today's show. 

Mark: I've seen so many people go on this particular beach and they just burst into tears because you just don't know what to do with all the emotions, the noise, the commotion, the smell, the, it's just completely overwhelming. 

Toby: My guest today is a renowned conservationist, award-winning author, [00:01:00] broadcaster photographer, wildlife tour leader, and longstanding BBC Wildlife columnist. He's written over 60 books, including a Field Guide to Wales, dolphins, and Porpoises, and the Shark Watches Handbook. As a leading figure in the world of wildlife photography, he also chaired the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Judging panel from 2005 to 2011, and was named as one of the world's most influential photographers by Outdoor Photography magazine. And in addition to all of that, he played a role in shaping my destiny. Welcome to the show, Mark Carwardine. 

Mark: Hello. Thank you. How did I shape your destiny? 

Toby: Well, I thought, I thought you'd never ask. So let's start off with that one, shall we? I'm gonna age shame you now because back in 1990, I was a young 16-year-old whipper snapper who had just discovered, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. 

And then after I'd finished all of those books, I [00:02:00] went in search for more of his works. And I came across Last Chance to See, which may well have influenced my decision to then pursue a degree in marine zoology, which then 

Mark: Oh, really? 

Toby: led me to where I am today. 

Mark: Oh, that's wonderful. That's really nice to hear. Great. 

Toby: It's an amazing book. And then obviously you followed that up with Stephen Fry, made the TV series as well. so the first question I really want to ask you is, are you going to do a follow up at some point? Are we gonna have another last chance to see in the future? 

Mark: Well, we are talking about doing one. I would love to do it. I love working with Stephen Fry. He's, very challenging 'cause he knows everything about everything. And I, I kept having to remind him last time that he shouldn't be reading up 'cause I'm supposed to be the expert and he's supposed to be learning. 

but of course he very quickly knew more than most people about all the subjects we were talking about. The whole idea about last chances, he was basically to, to sort of trick people into a conservation series. You know, most people wouldn't dream of watching a, series about [00:03:00] conservation. 

Too heavy, too boring, too depressing. And the idea was to creep up on them by making it hopefully entertaining and, you know, a little bit different. And with Stephen's name it attracts a whole different audience. Each species we picked, the idea was to use that as a way into a particular topic, whether it be poaching or climate change or whatever the subject is. 

So we'd both like to do more. the challenge is finding dates when we're both free. 'cause it's a lot of time away. That was seven months of filming, so it's certainly something we're talking about. Anyway, I would love to 

Toby: And I would hope that you would include Pangolins in this one. 

Mark: actually, yes, that's definitely on the list. 

Toby: Oh, there we go. Well, we can, we can help you out with that. I think we can, we can probably try and advise. So the, the premise of the show is that we've invited you to select four of your images that you are going to hang on the wall of your humble dwelling, um, as you exist in perpetuity in a remote location. How easy or difficult was it to, to select these four images? 

Mark: Oh my goodness. Well, it, [00:04:00] it was a nightmare. I mean, picking four images is really, really difficult. I think as we know, photographers are the worst editors of their own images. 'Cause we all have a personal connection with the photos. And I think, for example, if you're entering pictures in a competition, a really good idea is to pick a, a broader selection of the ones that you think are competition winners and get friends and other, photographers and colleagues and so on to help pick the ones you enter because you remember that you were waist deep in a mosquito infested swamp in the middle of the night to take that picture. 

But they don't know that all they're looking at is the picture. And so they see it very differently. So when I was trying to pick four images for this, you know, I'm thinking, oh, I really enjoyed taking that. And thinking, but is it, should I be picking the best picture or the one with an interesting story? 

I've also got an admission to me and this is gonna absolutely horrify you. And I, I don't tell anyone else, but I worked out when I was doing this. I'm out of interest how many. [00:05:00] Pictures of my behind in my editing, 1.83 million 

Toby: No, 

Mark: still to go through. Um, which is 'cause I just don't get the time. 

I mean, I've been away just recently for five weeks, hungry for two weeks. And then the g Galaga Islands, I took 127,000 pictures in the five weeks. So they're now nicely backed up on several different hard drives and I'm all very careful about that. But when am I gonna get round to going through them? So there's 1.83 million that I didn't look at to try and pick these 

Toby: Okay, 

Mark: and of the others. 

I ended up just picking ones that I thought might be interesting. Not necessarily the best, and I know that's easy to say, but with a bit of a story. Ones I enjoyed taking and so on, which is, which is slightly different to the ones as say you'd pick for a competition, but it's, it's really hard and I'm sure you're the same. 

You, you, you get emotionally attached to certain pictures and you can't judge whether they're great pictures or they're just great happy memories.[00:06:00] 

Toby: That's, that's so true. I mean, I'm hoping that with the advances of ai, there must be a way that you could just slot your memory card in and just go, can you please just choose, just narrow this down to maybe a hundred images, and then you come back half an hour later and it's all done. 

Mark: Wouldn't that be lovely? people say, well, why don't you get, um, you know, some fantastic photography students out there who would be brilliant at doing it, but no judgment on them. I, I wouldn't trust anybody else to go through 'cause they are, they mean a lot. And, you know, I might have some particular take on a subject that anyone looking at it a new wouldn't realize. 

And certainly at the moment, I wouldn't trust AI with a, barge bowl going through all those 1.83 million. But then maybe that's better than not going through them at all. Or not going through them till I've retired. I don't know. 

Toby: Until somebody finds them in an archeological dig and just finds a hard drive somewhere. I wonder what 

Mark: oh no. That's so depressing. That's probably what'll happen. Oh no, 

Toby: Right. Okay. 

Mark: them this weekend, I promise. 

Toby: think yes, exactly. Just, just a [00:07:00] hundred thousand a day. You'll be fine. You'll be done in a couple of 

Mark: know. Done it a couple weeks. Yeah. 

Toby: Okay, cool. Let's move on to, let's, let's not move on. Let's actually start, shall we? Let's start with the first image before we go down an AI rabbit hole. 

Would you like to tell us a little bit about the first image you chose, please? 

Image 1

 
Mark: Well, this it is a sperm whale and, I do quite a lot of underwater photography, mainly snorkeling rather than diving. So this was taken while snorkeling, about 12 miles off the coast of Dominica in the Caribbean. it's a wonderful place. There's a resident population of sperm whales off the west coast of Dominica, and most of the time the water is beautiful, crystal clear, especially when you're that far offshore.

and if you do it properly, the way it works is you're in the boat, you find the whales, they come up to the surface to breathe and ' cause they're very deep diving animals, they tend to spend, you know, typically 10 or 12 minutes at the surface just catching their breath. And so you just slip in the water.

The boat moves away. And then if you're lucky, the [00:08:00] whales will come to you and they'll investigate you. and to me that's the pleasure is that it's entirely on their terms. , And so you have wonderful opportunity to take pictures of them. The, the, the challenge is getting other people outta the picture and other whales outta the picture

so the reason I picked this is it's got beautiful sun rays. i'm looking down at it, sun shining on it. You can see the whole whale if you're photographing whales from a boat, of course, it's very difficult to. Shoot the whole animal. it's either using a drone or, or a plane or getting in the water with them to see everything. I've also picked this for, for a particular reason. One, one of the challenges of this kind of photography is there are lots of bits in the water, even if it's nice, crystal clear water, you get little bits of, seaweed and algae and bits of fish scales and whatever.

And to me that often spoils a picture. But I feel very strongly about not manipulating images. I don't agree with [00:09:00] removing anything from an image. Apart from dust spots or adding anything. so that sort of limits the pictures that I really like taken underwater.

This is one where there genuinely was nothing in the water. It was crystal clear and that's why I've picked this shot because it's beautiful, clear blue, deep ocean.

Toby: It, it is one of those moments, isn't it? Where you know you have a spot or you have something, it's gonna detract from the entire thing. I also dive and I love diving and looking down into very deep blue water is one of the most humbling experiences ever.

Put a sperm whale into it, and it becomes even more humbling. And I love the lines moving down into with the rays of light. So the sun is, is it overhead? The sun at this time

Mark: It was a very bright, sunny day. It was, mid-morning and it wouldn't have been great photographing the whales at the surface, just too harsh and contrasty, but underwater, it worked beautifully.

I'm shooting with, , I think on this occasion it was a 15 millimeter lens, so it's still [00:10:00] pretty close. I mean, sometimes on this particular trip, one of the whales just came towards me, kept coming, coming, coming. And I've got these shots of the head getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

And then it literally just pushed me outta the water. It, it sort of put its nose on my chest and stomach and pushed me outta the water very gently and then just gr gently brought me back in again. I've got pictures down the back of the whale. It's all very odd, but so this is still fairly close.

You still get some of the color, which is lovely, but, it is an interesting thing. People think I'm a bit mad not to remove just a couple of bits of seaweed, but I feel very strongly that if you, for example, if you go to the, the wildlife photographer of the year competition exhibition, you know, which travels the world and you are looking at all the photographs and you are, marveling at the, the encounter.

And the photography. If you suddenly think that, all these pictures could have been manipulated, if they allowed manipulation, the magic would go. And I know that this would just be mo removing one [00:11:00] tiny speck of seaweed or a bit of algae or something. but as soon as you go down that slippery slope, you start to mistrust everything.

And to me, the magic of wildlife photography and enjoying other people's photographs is, marveling at the encounter and the picture. And you don't want to think, oh, there's something a bit too good about that. he or she must have taken something away or added something or, you know, it, it just loses all that magic.

It's a personal thing. I feel. I don't want to go down that slippery slope. And so I'll be very selective about picking the images that don't have anything in the way that other people might remove.

Toby: It is quite prolific. I mean, with our photo challenge, we ask for the raw file, , and obviously there's going to be some editing going on, but like you

Mark: Yeah,

Toby: been removed or it's been added, I mean, I remember having a conversation with quite a famous wildlife photographer who shall remain unnamed, and they said, oh, I never throw away an image 'cause I never know when I might need a bit of that photograph.

I was like, really? [00:12:00] I was like, oh dear. Okay. I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that and I'm not gonna mention it on the podcast at all in the future, but, uh,

Mark: it's a mistake. I think it's a, I mean, you know, I could easily have taken a picture on this same dive, same snorkel of a calf and take that from that picture with the same light and add it to this and it would be wonderful, but I'd never forgive myself. and if anybody found out.

All my pictures from then on would be suspect. you know, the pleasure is getting the great photo, isn't it? That's, that's the pleasure of wildlife photography. It's the challenge. You don't want to be out there thinking, oh, well I can cheat. Why, why do it at all? So, yeah, I, I feel quite strongly that we should all be striving to, show pictures that are honest and exactly as we saw and, and encountered.

Toby: It's becoming more and more difficult to take an outstanding original image. Technology really does help you these days. I mean, you've got all these different systems that you can use and advanced editing tools as well.

But that's why when we talked [00:13:00] to, to really good photographers who really thought out the image and executed it perfectly and kept it honest, and it, it's still a great photograph, isn't it? How long, how long ago was this?

Mark: This was last year, last January. I've actually stopped running trips in Dominica for the time being, whale watching there is getting a bit outta hand. There's some voluntary regulations at the moment and there's some very responsible whale watch operators, but there are some others now that will race up to the whales and literally people would jump in with the boat moving literally on top of the whales. We've all seen this, you know, in other parts of the world, you know, in, in Africa particularly.

and it's, it's impossible to tackle it at the moment. We, what I'm trying to do is work with, Dominique to get proper regulations that are enforceable and a way of enforcing them , but I don't want to be part of the melee at the moment. So we've decided to stop and try and get proper regulations in place and then hopefully start again in a few years time.

Toby: because, because once it starts to get out of [00:14:00] control, as we've seen it, it will continue to get out of control and get worse and worse. Unfortunately, you know, in the, in the Instagram generation of people who by all accounts need content for their feeds and will take these ridiculous chances, and it's not just Instagram.

That's being a bit unfair because there are a lot of wildlife photographers who have a rush of blood to their head and will act in a way that maybe they regret later on. Because there is a lot of pressure that people put on themselves to get these sorts of, these sorts of shots.

Mark: And you know, if you are, if you're in a boat and the well watch operator says that's what you do and you dunno any better, you can't always blame everybody. But it, it just needs regulations. And I think it's the same everywhere where there are more and more people, which is a good thing.

More people are interested in wildlife and keen to see it. you know, that's got to be a positive, but it has to be managed

Toby: exactly. If they want it to be sustainable for their country as well, it has to be. 'cause otherwise you'll get a bad reputation. Okay. Brilliant. Um, well a great start. Really lovely image to start off with. So, uh,

Mark: Oh, thank you.
 

Image 2

 
Toby: On. Let's [00:15:00] move on to your, your second image, which is

Polar opposite if you, if you excuse the fan, but, okay.

Tell us about this image, please, Mark.

Mark: So this is a photograph, in my back garden of a blackbird on a wet branch. and the blackbird's looking a bit wet and soggy and, there's rain, slow shutter speed, raindrops behind just a, a wall of rain behind it. It is not one of my greatest images, but it's from a lovely project. So during lockdown, everyone's stuck at home and I was looking for a project to do and actually started photographing garden birds, which I'd actually ridiculously never done before. You know, been I sort of got into this quite seriously during lockdown. Had a lot of time to play with and, started experimenting with different setups. And in the end came up with an idea for doing a book on how to photograph garden birds, which became an RSPB book published a couple of years ago. And so that gave me real purpose

i'm a great believer in great photography is less about the subject than [00:16:00] about. how you take the photograph, you know, you can, have a, a Javan rhino, which has hardly ever been photographed before, but it doesn't necessarily make it a great photograph. but you can have a Robin or a Blackbird and if you use the light and interesting composition and nice background and so on, you can make a much more interesting photo than just a, boring old portrait of a Javan rhino.

So, I, I really genuinely believe it's not the subject, you know, judging photo competitions as you have many times over many years, you tend to see thousands of tigers and polar bears and lions, and they got to be really exceptional to stand out and stand a chance of winning. But if you are looking at all these pictures and there's suddenly a stunning picture of a house sparrow.

How often do you see that it jumps out . So I think the other great thing about garden bird photography is of course, that you've got the ready made subjects right close to home, they're fairly, I was gonna use the word [00:17:00] tame, but they're, they're used to you coming out and walking the dog or playing football or putting the washing out or whatever you do in your garden.

So they're used to you moving around and the great thing is , they're very adaptable. So they will let you move a perch or change a location and within a few minutes they'll be there feeding again. So they make perfect subjects. And of course you don't need to fly anywhere You don't need rental cars or hotels or, so it's wonderful.

So this particular shot I was just experimenting with shooting in bad weather. One of the great things about living in England is during the winter you get a lot of bad weather and, this is actually a mix of real rain and artificial rain. So what I did was, you need a little bit of real rain to make the bird wet 'cause I don't want to wet the bird artificially.

And then I've got a garden sprinkler behind that's sprinkling that spray of water behind the bird, not wetting it. It's literally about less than a foot behind. And that gives the backdrop, the bird's a bit wet, [00:18:00] there's some natural drops, you know, bouncing off it. You can imagine there's a little bird table with some food down below the black bird. So it comes and lands on that point. Time and time and time again, I'm sitting in a regular little canvas hide, popped up in the garden and every time it came down it just took a few shots

so it was really good fun and I, it was a fantastic way of sort of. Of honing skills, so it makes you think outside the box if you don't have that many species or if you've got a small garden and you want to take lots of pictures, you have to do something different which makes you become more creative and you can then use that skill when you go on a, on a trip.

Toby: I think it's a lovely way to practice, especially when you know, people have got their first camera, they're getting into wildlife photography and you want to, to have a go at something and birds are amazing 'cause birds are always doing something. And it always amuses me when people go, are you into birds? And they go, no, I'm not into birds. I don't wanna photograph birds at all.

I just want give them two [00:19:00] days. And everyone's ignoring everything else and they just wanna photograph the birds. It's

Mark: They're stunning. I mean, not necessarily a blackbird, although they can look beautiful as well, but some of the birds in the uk, my garden here, blue tits and, you know, great tits and chaffinches that we take for granted, when you look at them closely, they're as stunning as any bird you'll find anywhere in the world.

So, it's a really lovely project and I took, I mean, goodness, I have no idea. Thousands of pictures and just picked about 120 for the book. But it was actually possible to get that many different images without them all looking too similar.

Toby: So let me ask you a question. From a photo competition point of view, because we get asked this all the time because people will submit photographs of, hummingbirds, for example, and hummingbirds. Invariably they're coming to a feeder and they're somewhere nearby, and we say it's a lovely photograph, but we wouldn't accept it in a wildlife photography competition because there's a certain element of, coercion.

You know, you're enticing able to come into an area where you take a photograph. How would you stand on an image like [00:20:00] this? Would you mind if somebody does that? But at least if they're honest about it and explain how the photograph was taken, would you then take that into account if you were judging?

Mark: It is a, it is an interesting one. Funnily enough, I was in Ecuador last week photographing hummingbirds, and what I would say is, you are a better man than me if you can photograph them without doing it near feeders. I think it's a big, it's a big gray area and it depends on a competition. Different competitions have different rules.

Of course. My personal view is you should absolutely draw the line at live bait. but having said that, we are all, or we should be feeding our birds in the gardens with seeds and that kind of thing, which is a good thing that helps 'em to survive during bad winters and so on.

so providing food like that, I personally think it's okay. It's a way of attracting the birds and so long as you do it responsibly. I think the worst thing, like with my Garden bird project would've been to feed them, you know, for the duration of the project and then suddenly stop. 'cause I've done, I don't want to do any more photography.

So the, the [00:21:00] bottom line is I think, baiting in terms of providing food or water, or you could argue even shelter.

Is okay as long as you're honest about it live bait is definitely not okay. And I remember one, example years ago I was involved in the competition and one of the entries was actually a live, uh, wild boar released for a tiger.

Toby: Oh

Mark: I mean, that's the extreme of what's appallingly bad. But you know, I think it for a competition bait in terms of just bird seed and so on is completely fine. And, and hummingbirds, I, I take your point completely, but there'd be very few good hummingbird pictures out there without doing it around feeders,

Toby: Oh, you see,

That's what would make it so much more special though, wouldn't it?

Mark: It would, oh yeah, you're right. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, good luck with that.

Toby: Yeah. I mean, mean, look, with technology advancing, you've got, you know, hummingbird animal eye tracking. Now I'm sure it's gonna get easier, isn't it? But I think you have to be honest, that's the main thing is if you can be honest about it [00:22:00] and let the judges make a decision based on the information provided,

Mark: it's a difficult one because, you know, for example, in Scandinavia, they're baiting the bears. You go and do bear photography from the hides, and they're there because of bait. I think there's a gray area. And, and there's always a balance. It's like, ecotourism in general, it's always a compromise. It's, it's good to encourage people to see wildlife and much wildlife wouldn't be there at all without wildlife, photographers and ecotourist. There'd just be no reason to protect the wildlife.

and if that means a bit of baiting, responsible baiting, I think there's an argument for it in certain circumstances. But it's a complicated one. There's no easy, easy

Toby: a minefield. Whenever I talk about it, people say, well, what about Waterholes? But I'm not gonna go into that. Right. I'm moving. I think we've done enough baiting chat now. Okay. So we're gonna take a quick break and then when we come back we are going to have a look at your third image.

​

Toby: Welcome back to the Pangolin podcast with my guest [00:23:00] today, Mark Carwardine. And we are now onto his third image Mark. Would you like to describe what's happening in this image, please?

Mark: Well, this is a half and half shot, half in the water and half outta the water of a, friendly gray whale. coming up and associating with a girl on a boat and, , this was taken in one of my favorite places on the planet, Baja, California, in Mexico. And to be specific, San Ignacio Lagoon in Baja, this is a a, a big lagoon where lots of gray whales gather every winter to mate and calve.

And over more than 50 years, the whales have become increasingly friendly. This is another slight controversy, The whales come to the small boats. We go out in little boats with typically eight or 10 people, and they will come and nudge the boats and lift their heads out, waiting to be scratched and tickled.

And I know everyone's going, oh, no, no, no. You shouldn't touch wildlife. And yes, I agree you shouldn't. But if we've done [00:24:00] experiments, I've been going there for 30 years. I mean, every year. I know many of the whales personally. And you go out in two boats and one boatload of people will scratch and tickle the whales.

And one boatload of people is hard, but will sit on their hands and not do anything. And the whales spent all their time with the boatload that are scratching and tickling, and they'll avoid the one that's ignoring them. And they, they absolutely get pleasure out of it. And I've seen many, many, many, many times.

Female gray whales push their young calves that are quite nervous, push them outta the water, up to the boats to be scratched and tickled to teach the calf that this is good fun and this is what it's okay to do. And so I think it's one, maybe the only exception where I really believe it's okay to scratch and tickle them and then touch them.

There's been no evidence of any problem or issue or transfer of any germs or anything. and the whales I genuinely believe get as much out of it as the people. So this [00:25:00] shot I was actually in the boat with this girl. It looks like I'm in the water, but what I'm doing is I've got my camera in underwater housing, as you would for diving, and I'm literally just leaning out over the side of the boat.

And I'm just firing blindly, moving it around in lots of different directions Hoping one shot is gonna work. And this one I think does, 'cause you can see the eye of the whale, you can see the mouth under the, eye, and you can see the girl quite clearly.

And the question is, who's watching whom? That's what I like about the picture is, you know, the whale's there playing with the girl, the girl's there playing with the whale. And it seems 50 50 to me.

Toby: It's a lovely moment and I really like the story behind it. I am convinced there are some animals in the world who enjoy that sort of human interaction. Look, we all have pets and they all enjoy the human interaction, don't they as well. I wanted to ask you, you mentioned earlier on, obviously you photograph underwater when you're snorkeling.

but do you also dive, do you, do the animals behave differently if you're diving or snorkeling,

Mark: well, in [00:26:00] this particular place in San Nacio, you, without a special filming permit, you're not allowed in the water. but in other places, they do tend to behave differently. And it depends on the, the species and the location, whether what they're doing. Lots of different factors. I just find that because there's, they have to come to the surface to breathe with whales, spend a lot of time there at the surface, it's better to be flexible and snorkeling. And I do a lot of this leaning over the side. I mean, a lot of the greatest BBC footage, the cameraman wasn't in the water or the camerawoman.

they were, you know, using pole cams over the side of boats without disturbing the animals. And, you know, without having to get in and outta the water, the boat can keep up and there's all sorts of benefits. You can get great underwater shots just by leaning over and just firing blindly. But, you move the camera but fire continuously and you're doing this, and one of those shots is gonna be the whale dead center or where you want it to be in the frame.

Toby: [00:27:00] Well, this explains why you've got 1.8 million photographs languishing on a hard drive Then if it just firing away randomly. There we go. Spray and pray. I believe that's called, isn't it?

Mark: Oh, that's a, that's a real insult. Spraying. There's a lot of thought that goes behind that. You can't, that's not spraying and praying that, that's spraying and praying and just firing away arbitrarily.

Toby: we go. Oh, it's, it's, it's this movement that's, here we go. This is the, the well

Mark: careful, professional, logical movement. That is, that's, that's the way to do it.

That's not spraying and

Toby: I apologize. I retract my, my accusation of spraying and praying. But, you know, in the days before digital, this would've been rather an expensive and risky process

Mark: I mean like everybody that everything's changed dramatically. Well, I was actually chairing the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition during the whole period, the last year of film and then growing digital. And you could see the standard of photography just grow exponentially.

And, obviously there are many, many [00:28:00] advantages of shooting digital, one being the immediate feedback. So with this sort of more experimental photography, you know, as far removed from spraying and praying as you can possibly get, you need to get feedback. So I'll do it. I'll shoot, look in the back of the camera, see what's working, what's not working. But also you're just shooting more. So I tend to. I'm joking aside about the, you know, shooting a lot. I tend to not take pictures for long periods of time, And then when everything comes together and I feel there's great potential, I will really shoot a lot. So I tend to go for hours without taking, everyone else might be taking pictures, but I'm not, you know, many times the angles are all wrong or the visibility's not great, or you know, there's something that isn't gonna work, so I won't even try. but when it feels like it's got the potential, then I, I will shoot hundreds, thousands of pictures and maybe get one that works.

Toby: That's the beauty of digital. I mean, let's not forget that the, the concept of the photo safari is very far removed from what it used to be after the advent of digital. [00:29:00] There's no way that you'd be able to advise your guests on what they're doing right or doing wrong. If it was film,

Mark: well, no, we on, on workshops and so we'll all look at one another's pictures in the evening and analyze what's working and what's not working. And have another go the next day. And, and over the course of a week or two weeks, you can see all the photography improve and it's entirely with that feedback

Toby: brilliant. Okay. Well then, um, I think it's time for us to move on to the fourth image. Please.

Would you, uh, describe this image to us? It's beautiful.

Mark: So this is three King Penguins on, , St. Andrews Bay, in South Georgia. And it is white around the penguins, just pure snow. I've overexposed it quite a lot. So one penguin, you can see the head and the other two are, down. Just having a snooze.

it's quite a minimalist sort of picture I suppose. I, I, have you ever been to South Georgia? It's, it's just one of those places that really defies description. Now I'm gonna try and describe it, but is, is it just over a, just over a.

Toby: but, but let me have a [00:30:00] go.

Mark: Yes, exactly. It's this tiny speck of an island, down in the Southern Ocean. Just over a hundred miles long, and it's absolutely heaving with wildlife. So there's 50 million seabirds. 5 million seals and you land on a place like St.

Andrews Bay where this was taken, and I've seen so many people go on this particular beach and they just burst into tears because you just don't know what to do with all the emotions, the noise, the commotion, the smell, the, it's just completely overwhelming. And you look out in this particular bay, you're talking 150,000 pairs of big king penguins and elephant seals and Antarctic fur seals, and there's albatross is flying overhead.

It is like a, an imaginary wonder world, you know? And I think one of the challenges landing anywhere in South Georgia was. You try and record everything. You know, there's something happening everywhere.

There's this massive penguins, there's an elephant seal right here. There's two penguins fighting here. There's something else going on [00:31:00] over there. And what I always say to people is obviously do that the first time and just shoot everything that moves. But the trick it's just to be more selective and sit and watch, what's going on, and maybe sit for half an hour, watch a couple of penguins or watch a seal and, and just photograph that.

Don't try and photograph everything else. And what I was just trying to do here, we, we walked up behind the main colony and there was a lot of snow and there was a row of penguins, and I just picked out these three. Overexposed to just get rid of all the detail in the snow, no shadow or anything.

So it's just white and the color of the penguins does the rest.

Toby: The timing of this conversation is perfect 'cause I was having a conversation this morning with a ship operator about doing our own charter to South Georgia and Falklands and Antarctica as well. So I'll give you a call to let you know when we're going.

Mark: it's, um,

Toby: with us.

Mark: oh, I would love to, any excuses to go to South Georgia, I'll tell you, it's fantastic. They're actually, changing the regulations for visitors to South [00:32:00] Georgia. So in the old days you could lie down and kneel down.

And of course as photographers we're doing that all, all day long. But since bird flu has, has been there, they've stopped that. They've also banned the use of monopods and tripods, which you think, okay, that's a disaster for photography. But what I've been doing is I've developed a whole new technique and I know lots of other photographers are doing this on Safari already.

This is all new to me. So I've got, I've bought a monitor that now sits on the top of the camera. The camera's on the end of a monopod, which I don't put on the ground 'cause you're not allowed to. And so I can see this nice big monitor instead of trying to look at the little screen on the back of the camera.

And I'm using a remote release, so I'm holding the camera just above the ground, all within the regulations, but shooting at that low level, which is what I love doing.

Toby: There we go. There's a top tip. I'm gonna go make an investment now in Atmos. Who made the Atmos Ninja? 'cause the tens of thousands of people who will watch this will rush off now to go and buy [00:33:00] one in preparation for their Antarctica trip.

Good

Mark: enough, a few people who've got bad backs who I, I traveled with and so on, who can't bend down so easily. you know, my nieces keep telling me off, say, oh, on call Mark, every time you get down, you go, Ugh. And every time you send up, you go, Ugh. So this is a great setup just for shooting at ground level, which we're doing a lot with wildlife without having to do all the bending.

Toby: Was this quite early in the Antarctic season or was it a bit

Mark: in October.

Toby: There we

Mark: Yeah. There tends to be more snow.

Toby: We are looking at early season, late October, early November,

Mark: Yeah, that's my favorite time.

Toby: . That's what we're aiming for. Anyway, before I start pitching a product that I haven't quite developed yet, and I'll sign up here, well tell you what. If you, if anyone is interested in coming to Antarctica with us, make sure you sign up for our newsletter.
 
There'll be a link in the description down below. If you've been to Antarctica before or any of the places that Mark has mentioned, please let us know in the comments too. In a minute, we're gonna move on to the fifth image, which is a photograph taken [00:34:00] by, a photographer, the who you admire, maybe a photograph you wish you'd taken yourself.
 
And, , we're gonna take a short break and we'll come back for that. 

Image 5

 
Toby: Okay, welcome back to the last part of the Pangolin podcast with my guest today, Mark Carwardine. And we are now onto the section where we have asked Mark to, , share an image taken by another photographer that he admires and perhaps wished he'd taken himself.

So, Mark, would you please describe this photograph for us?

Mark: This is a wonderful photo and oh my goodness, I'd be so happy if I'd taken it myself by Steve Winter, who I'm sure everybody will know. , He's been a National Geographic photographer for a couple of decades, at least, I think. And, , you'll recognize a lot of his pictures. This is one of the ones I particularly love of a snow leopard.

Taken in Laak in India. , And it won the, as it was then the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition in 2008. And I was chairing the judging. And I, I still remember to this day when that picture came up on the screen, first time we [00:35:00] saw it, and the gasps and everybody, because in those days there were, there were really no.

No pictures of wild snow leopards. I still think this is one of the best ever taken. It's an interesting shot because , the snow leopard is very visible, very clear. It's very far over to the right of the frame, isn't it?

And I, I love the composition. It's quite an edgy composition. So there's snow on the ground, snow in the air, taken at night. It's dark. Normally you'd think all that space on the left of the animal would be dead space, and it's too close to the right, but because there's so much snow, I think it gives a really wonderful sense of place.

What's interesting about it is it was taken with a camera trap and I think in those days, that would've been the only possible way to get a picture of a snow leopard given what we knew then. And it's interesting, people, comment about camera traps winning competitions and, and say, well, it's cheating.

You know, you just put the camera out there and you're in the pub drinking a beer, and the, the camera takes the picture and it's so easy. Think, oh my [00:36:00] goodness. Anything. But, so I know because I talked to Steve, when he accepted the award, he was there, if I remember correctly, he was trying to get this picture for 13 months.

And he had, 45 different locations, something like that, and 14 different cameras. And he was with, experts in the field. And he had to know where the snow leopards were likely to be. Had to get all the technology right to take a picture that beautifully exposed, and compose it without the animal there.

I mean, that is not cheating, that's not easy photography. It's an amazing achievement. The other interesting thing about this is he was using,

a cannon rebel camera. And I remember at the time thinking, well, that's only eight megapixels. We always joke about this, that, you know, people say to photographers, oh, I love your photography, your picture. You must have a really good camera, like saying to a writer, I loved your book.

You must have a really good word processor. It's the same logic, but you know, it just shows an [00:37:00] eight megapixel canon Rebel basic camera takes a shot like that, that then is blown up at the Natural History Museum in London and back lit on a fantastic screen. And, it just shows you can, you can take stunning shots with almost anything. yes, like we've said, all this modern camera equipment with pre recapture and eye focusing is wonderful and helps a lot, but it's still down to the photographer.

And if you're a great photographer you can produce stunning pictures with the most basic equipment.

Toby: And, and equipment that you maybe not so attached to as well, that you're not sitting there with $20,000 worth of cameraing gear, leaving it out on the mountain side or up a tree somewhere.

Mark: absolutely. That's a good reason to use a cheaper camera. If you're doing camera trapping like that, then yeah, you, you gotta be prepared to lose a few.

Toby: But it's the thought process that goes into it. That is, is staggering like you say, it's the composition, it's the preparedness, it's the bushcraft, it's the, it's the vision as to how you want the image to come out.

I don't know if [00:38:00] this was very deliberate to leave a lot of space on the left and the luck is that it was snowing because that also looks like stars, it looks like a constellation. So we'll have to get him on the show and we're gonna ask him if this composition, was he hoping that the leopard, the snow leopard was gonna be on the left?

Mark: I think it works. If there was one with the leopard before, it wouldn't be quite such a strong composition.

It's funny isn't it, with composition it's quite subjective.

one thing I used to love going around the exhibition when I was judging the exhibition in London, listening to people's comments and then inevitably saying, oh, the judges are useless. They've got no idea this should have won, that shouldn't win. And so on. So it's, it just reminded me it is very subjective and you can't take yourself too seriously.

Toby: was there a heated debate amongst the judging panel when this came out? I mean, firstly, when you saw the image, did you know it was camera trap?

Mark: We didn't know when we first saw the image. We did know before we made the decision 'cause we asked for more information. , And it was unanimous. I mean, some years, and I won't name which years, [00:39:00] there's great debate and nobody agreed. We had to do it by voting. , Other years it's unanimous. And this was one that, there was just an audible gasp amongst all the judges when they first saw this.

It was new. You know, it is all about originality. Nobody could say, oh, I've seen that before. 'cause they hadn't.

Toby: It's the wow factor.

Mark: Imagine the pleasure of looking in the back of the camera and just flicking through, seeing if you've got anything. Oh my God. And seeing that one on the back of the camera, you can, you'd be dancing around the room, wouldn't you?

Toby: Exactly. Especially after 13 months of like, oh,

Mark: Yes, exactly.

Toby: not again. I mean, at that point, you know, you're gonna get to the point, the budget's running out, you've gotta go home at some point, and then they're gonna say, well, what, what exactly were you doing in the Himalayas for 13 months?

Mark: Where do you draw the line? It's um, it's really difficult to know how long you give it, you know, where do you stop?

Toby: Brilliant. Mark. Um, well I think we're gonna leave it there. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. Thank you very much for making time in your busy, busy editing schedule. But before we [00:40:00] go, I'm just gonna ask you, the big question is, your humble dwelling, you're allowed to imagine your humble dwelling is in any location in the world where you're going to be in perpetuity with these images on the wall. Where is that location going to be?

Mark: This is another impossible question. It's like picking four images to show if I could, if I was allowed 20 places, that I could just about do that. My favorite places on the planet are Baja. I've already mentioned and Wrangle Island in Russia. Which is, it's like Svalbard on speed.

It's quite an extraordinary place. but. What I've gone for is there's a, there's a place down on the Antarctic peninsula south of the Gerlash Strait. I'd sort of be next door to the Ukrainian, Antarctic base there, Ky base it's called. So that'd be my nearest neighbors, but I'd love to go there if that's okay.

And then, then you've got the best of my two favorites. You've got the polar stuff. There's a, a, a penguin colony right next door and all sorts of other penguins about, and there are whales [00:41:00] swimming right in front. So I'd be in seventh heaven.

Toby: There we go. So, we'll, we'll, we'll allow you a very well insulated, humble dwelling. Then. It might, it might be humble, but it's gonna be warm. So, Mark, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. It's been an absolute pleasure and a bit of an honor to have you on the show. So thank you very much for, for

Mark: you. It's been great chatting. Really enjoyed it. Thanks very much.



Toby: Thank you for listening to episode eight of the Pangolin podcast. We hope you enjoyed it. As always, we'd love to hear your comments and feedback, so please leave them in the comments down below. If you don't want to miss another episode or any of our other wildlife photography videos, please make sure you subscribe to the channel and turn on notifications.
 
Finally, don't forget to sign up for the Pangolin Photo Safari's Friday focus newsletter. You can do that by heading over to pangolin photo.com, or you can scan the QR code on your screen now. I look forward to seeing you on a Pangolin photo safari soon, and all that's left for me to say is that the Pangolin podcast was hosted by me, Toby Jermyn, and [00:42:00] produced and edited by Bella Falk.
 
Thank you.