Values Statement

Everyday, animals are going about their lives just as humans do. They are eating, chasing, breeding, fleeing, hiding, and so on. These actions are fundamentally connected. Animals pollinating plants is the most well known. But what about a bird scraping leaf litter for food, unintentionally aerating the soil for seeds to sprout. What about insects eating plant pests, unintentionally reducing stresses on plants. Those plants could be the food that we eat, or the plants that our food eats.

Nature has a splendour all of its own, but the greatest splendour is how the interconnectivity of so many actions provide the food, the water, the environment that humans need to live. However, that environment is fragile. Human actions can have an unintentional impact on the animals and plants whose actions are vital for preserving that environment.

My photography aims to showcase nature to help humans appreciate how important it is for us. I want humans to see the story of nature so that we understand how it all connects. I want to inspire people to see nature’s splendour through photography so that we all want to protect our shared environment.

The Pelican

We chose the Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus) as our symbol because we think it is an amazing animal. This is the only species of pelican naturally occurring in Australia and it has a range basically across the whole continent. While it is regularly associated with the coast, it also occurs inland. For us it means it links the areas that we spend most time in, Canberra and the NSW South Coast.

It swims and hunts effectively on the water and once airborne, can soar long distances. It is the master of air currents, whether using them to gain hight, or riding them just above the surface of the water, so as to skim along barely above the top of the water, without flapping its wings.

Most people probably miss the pelican’s amazing colours, because they see it as predominantly a black and white bird. However, for us, it symbolises what we hope to achieve, by revealing some of the beauty of nature that we can all see but sometimes we just need the right photograph to help. The bill and face of the pelican, especially when it is ready for breeding is a beautiful mix of colours yellow, blue, purple and salmon pink, becoming a spectrum along its bill. We never get tired of photographing these wonderful birds and we hope that people never get tired of seeing those photographs. We hope that through showing the beauty and splendour of pelicans, and nature, that people will want to preserve nature in its entirety for future generations to appreciate.