New Year – Blank Canvas.  It’s that time again for making photographic ‘resolutions’. We’re probably all doing it right now – looking ahead, making plans, setting goals and pre-visualising the images we’d love to get in the weeks and months ahead.  We bet you’ve also got good intentions, just like us, to photograph much more and a whole lot better in 2018.  But as we get our camera gear checked off and ready for our first visit of the year to Africa – butterflies stirring in the pit of our stomachs already – we thought it might be time for a bit of perspective on the whole thing.

It’s always tempting, with a fresh calendar ahead, to over-complicate things and perhaps expect a bit too much of ourselves.  There’s nothing worse for killing creativity than raising expectations way too high. So instead of being over-ambitious this year we’re stripping back to basics with a wonderfully simple reminder of some fundamentals from well-known US street photographer Jay Maisel who has a great tell-it-like-it-is way of distilling stuff about photography; putting everything to do with the whole art, business and passion for picture-making into a proverbial nutshell…

We hope he won’t mind us quoting his wise words here, alongside some of our images from 2017,  as we look ahead with excitement to another year of wildlife photography.

It’s just four short pointers, but each rings true for us…

‘First, perseverance trumps talent…

Time in the field, knowledge of subjects, returning again and again to a place pays off

…Second, do what you want to do – otherwise why bother…

Don’t be hide-bound by rules or the views of others and always follow your passion

…Third, be ethical; it might rub off on others…

Pass it on; behaving responsibly and respecting our subjects is paramount

…Fourth, don’t give up.’

Why would we when it’s fun to keep at it? Enjoy your photography in the year ahead.

Happy New Year.

And remember the first rule of photography is to enjoy it!