Wildlife Photography

In this episode Rob and Josh are joined by Matthew Sullivan, a wildlife photographer based in Florida, USA with a passion for reptiles and amphibians, and underwater photography. The discussion revolves around those things that Matt loves the best and, in the spirit of the podcast tradition, hosts and guest dive down all sorts of rabbit holes. Enjoy a relaxed discussion between three people who share a passion for wildlife and photography.

To find out more about Matthew and his work, visit his website and Instagram feed by using the links below:

https://www.9milesnorth.com/

https://www.instagram.com/formerlyhomelessphotographer/

About the Hosts

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser of Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/

To learn more about Jay visit his website: https://www.jayflemingphotography.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jayflemingphotography/

About the Hosts

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser of Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/

When we travel to photograph wildlife, the one thing we can never control is the weather. In this episode, Rob and Josh talk about shooting in unfavourable conditions, and discuss how your experience can lead to experimentation and surprisingly pleasing results. Join two friends as they chat about wildlife and photography, and share their experiences.

About the Hosts

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser of Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/

About the Hosts

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser of Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/

Wildlife photography can be a very expensive interest to have, often necessitating the features that the latest top end camera bodies offer, and the longest focal length and best glass available. The costs can spiral in to tens of thousands of pounds/dollars, but can we be guilty of ‘shiny new object syndrome’ at times, and is all this expensive kit really necessary? Rob and Josh discuss our preoccupation with new kit, and more modest ways to get great results and enjoy your wildlife photography without breaking the bank. If you are looking to get into wildlife photography but are daunted by the cost, or are looking to upgrade your existing set up in a cost effective way, then don’t miss this episode. Delivered in the usual conversational manner between two friends obsessed with photography, we hope you’ll find it both informative and entertaining.

About the Hosts

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser of Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/

About the Hosts

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser of Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/

About Our Guest:

Jake Willers was born in the beautiful city of Cambridge in the UK, in 1971. Although surrounded by family pets from day one, his relationship truly blossomed with animals from 1979 when his father bought a piece of land in the village of Shepreth, just outside Cambridge, where he built his dream home. At this time he began to take in wildlife to rehabilitate and this was the beginning of Shepreth Wildlife Park.

Jake spent the weekdays of his childhood living with his mother and sister in Cambridge and his weekends working at the wildlife park with his father. Alongside his affection for mammals Jake began nurturing a fascination for reptiles and invertebrates. At the age of 9 he was asked to care for a friend's corn snake for a few months; on one occasion it escaped and slept with him curled up under his sheets. By the age of 11 years Jake had a pet Imperial scorpion. Keen to learn more about nature in general, at 16 Jake got certified as a scuba diver and became fascinated with the underwater world. 

At the age of 22 he became desperate to see more of the world and so travelled and worked in Australia for a year; this was partly to quench his desire of diving on the Great Barrier Reef. During this time he worked as a builder's labourer, a hostel manager and Harley Davidson chauffeur to fund the trip. (Oh, and had great fun surfing!)

On his return to England Jake decided to train for a career that would give him the option of emigrating to Australia in the future. He chose to train as a chef for two years. Having had a long-term fascination with flying and dangerous activities he also took up skydiving. 

In 1995, Jake returned to western Australia to fulfill a burning ambition to snorkel with the whale shark on the Ningaloo Reef. While there he spent three months scuba diving and skydiving.

It was during this second visit to Australia while swimming with the whale shark that Jake's path became clear to him and he returned to Shepreth Wildlife Park to make a serious commitment to furthering its work. It wasn't long before he stamped his own identity on the place by creating a new exhibit, Waterworld and Bug City, dedicated to the creepy crawlies and underwater life of the wild. This was to be a turning point in his career as it was this feature which propelled Jake into the world of TV as presenter on National Geographic Channel's 'Insects From Hell' series. 

Having spent so many years surrounded by wildlife, Jake found himself in some pretty tricky situations. When he was five he was bitten on the knee by a lion cub. At 13 he was attacked during the night by a kinkajou (honey bear). He was been bitten numerous times by snakes (once in the face by a 6ft boa constrictor), on the hand by an alligator, and on the foot by a huntsman spider.

Jake's TV shows have gone from strength to strength and are still hugely popular with audiences over the world. His shows include; 'Insects From Hell' series I & II (13 episodes, National Geographic Channel), 'Mosquito Hell' (60 min, NGC), 'Pests From Hell' (60 min, NGC), 'Rogue Raiders' (6 episodes Five UK/Nat Geo Wild) and 'Wild Events' (7 episodes, Five UK).

In 2007 Jake moved from Cambridge, England to the US and formed NineCaribou Productions, LLC, a production company dedicated to expanding peoples' knowledge of wildlife and the world around us.

Jake currently resides with his wife, children and many pets near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA.

Find out more about Jake by visiting his website - https://www.jakewillers.com/

And be sure to listen to his podcast Behind the Wild Lens Podcast which is available on all the major podcast platforms.

Instagram - https://www.jakewillers.com/

About the Hosts

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser of Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/

Georgina Steytler is a multi-award-winning Australian nature photographer with a passion for birds, ethics, and conservation.

Website: https://www.georginasteytler.com.au/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/georgina_steytler/

Georgina’s book ‘For the Love of Flora’ can be viewed and purchased through this link - https://www.booktopia.com.au/for-the-love-of-flora-georgina-steytler/book/9781922388957.html

About the Hosts

David Tipling is one of the World’s most widely published wildlife photographers renowned for his artistic images of birds. His many accolades include a coveted European Nature Photographer of the Year Award (2002) for work on Emperor Penguins, and in North America, Nature’s Best Indigenous Peoples Award (2009) for his pictures of Mongolian eagle hunters.

He is the author or commissioned photographer for many books including the RSPB Guide to Digital Wildlife Photography (Bloomsbury) and Penguins –Close Encounters (New Holland). In 2013 after 6 years work visiting 39 countries on all seven continents the critically acclaimed Birds & People (Random House) was published. Recently published books include Seabirds of the World, A Parliament of Owls and an instant best seller with Princeton University Press, Britain’s Birds. His  book A Bird Photographer’s Diary charts his 30 year career in pictures.

In 2018 David's combined book sales topped 300,000 copies Worldwide. David writes regularly for various magazines including Amateur Photographer. TV and film work have seen appearances in front of the camera on Springwatch and The One Show, while David has worked behind the cameramaking short films and with author Jonathan Franzen on the documentary Emptying the Skies.

David’s pictures hang in various collections around the World and have been exhibited in New York’s Times Square, the Nikon Gallery in Japan and recently the Mall Galleries in London. 

For 16 years David was a judge for the British Birds Bird Photographer of the Year and was  a judge for Bird Photographer of the Year (BPOTY) for 6 years. He currently judges Wild Art Photographer of the Year (WPOTY).

In January 2022 David was named an OM SYSTEM Ambassador the scheme honours the talents of photographers creating exceptional imagery with OM SYSTEM  equipment.

To find out more visit David’s website - http://davidtipling.com/

David’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/david.tipling/

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser for Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/

About the Hosts

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser for Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/

About the Hosts

Rob Read has spent many years as a photography competition organiser; firstly as a founding director of, and primary organiser of Bird Photographer of the Year for the first five years of the competition, and more recently as founder, owner, and organiser of WildArt Photographer of the Year. Josh Galicki has been entering competitions for many years and has had significant success in many, including Bird Photographer of the Year. He is now part of the judging team for WildArt Photographer of the Year.

Find out more about your host’s and view their work on their Instagram profiles:

Rob - https://www.instagram.com/robreadphotos/

Josh - https://www.instagram.com/galicki_photography/

The WildArt Photographer of the Year competition website can be found here - https://www.wildartpoty.com/