When you learn who you are. When you learn who you aren't. An inspirational story of nature.

There are moments in our lives when we feel different. An unexplainable feeling of sadness, euphoria or power that comes over us like never before. At this moment we can choose to ignore the feeling or we can choose to embrace it and change our lives in an attempt to follow it. For me a moment of complete clarity and euphoria came when I first traveled to Yosemite National Park in 2011. The feeling was unexplainable, a sense of being finally existed within me. It was nature, real and epic, scary yet so natural. I was overcome. I traveled to Yosemite again in the winter of 2012 and had the same overwhelming experience. What was it about this place that captivated me? How could it make me feel this way and the incredible city of Rome or New York not?

Nature exists within all of us, we are mammals, we are an holistic part of nature. This is what I had felt during my experience at Yosemite. As a photographer and artist I could not think of anything more important than to attempt to express this feeling in my work. I have done so ever since. I capture nature because it is real, more real than money, more real than job security, more real than a house. Nature is all we truly have. Respect it. Nurture it. Love it. Become it.

Half Dome and Moon
Yosemite National Park

Frozen Lake, Half Dome and Moon
Yosemite National Park

A day on one of the most remote islands in the world. Snakes eating Goannas, baby Turtles hatching and giant fish!

This weekend we were lucky enough to hitch a five minute dinghy ride from our island to a more remote and uninhabited one. The beaches look like a war zone due to the Green Turtle nesting season over the past 4 months. What a mess!

We jumped off the boat and went for a bit of an adventure. I had just finished explaining to our new buddy Ben about the Goannas and huge Pythons on this island when, sure enough, there was a massive python beginning to devour a Goanna! I had never seen this before and Ben surely hadn't! I still find it hard to believe how these snakes can eat an animal almost twice their size.

Snake vs Goanna

This time of year the baby turtles are hatching all over the place, so we went for a bit of a mission to find a nest. It wasn't long until we found the little darlings making their way out of the soft sand and down to the beach.

Hayley and her little friends

Helping them with their long journey

After helping the babies with the beginning of their journey we jumped back into the dinghy for some epic fishing.

Our view of the islands while fishing

The fishing out here is incredible due to NO commercial fisheries and almost no ocean traffic whatsoever, it is a truly untouched part of the world. We tried a few different reefs in the area and caught an uncountable amount of fish. Mackerel, Coral Trout, Coral Cod of all kinds, Snapper, Red Bass and MASSIVE Giant Trevally, just to name a few. The best fishing experience of my life by a long way. We kept a Mackerel and two Coral Trout and the rest went to friends and families on our island. 

Mackerel and two Coral Trout

Me with a Mackarel

It's days like this that really make me appreciate where I live. It may be extremely remote, and there are huge disadvantages to that, but I truly do live in one of the most beautiful and natural places on our planet, I am grateful. 

All images in this post were captured with the Apple iPhone 4s

Tantalising Tuesdays! New fine art print | A Place For One

A Place For One

This photograph was captured on a recent trek through Thailand. This beautiful Elephant was quietly swaying and munching its breakfast as we passed by. This beautiful photograph is available as a fine art print, on stretched canvas, framed, as phone and tablet cases or as cards or postcards. Available on Etsy and RedBubble.

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The sharks of Mer Island

Morning cats!

The shallows of Mer island's incredible beaches are iconically filled with Sardines. It's quite a sight to see, however where there are bait fish there are always bigger fish and... Sharks. Mer has more sharks than I have ever seen in my life. Black and white tip reef sharks, huge Blind Sharks, sneaky Grey Nurse sharks (sneaky because they look just like blind sharks and will rip your leg off!), the epic tiger shark and, of course the Hammerhead shark, which are rumoured to tip dinghy's and can be seen chasing eagle rays close to the beach. It's enough to stop you going out in a boat ever again.

My first time fishing on the beach really opened my eyes as to how many sharks were around and how close they got to beaching themselves when in a feeding frenzy. I used to tell people how the kids grab their tails and jump into the water to scare them, i'm sure no one believed me. One day I was lucky enough to have my camera at the beach as a heard of sharks were feeding on sardines. These are a few of the images I captured on that day.


Enjoy : )
Lee.

I have the following three images from this series for sale in my Etsy store

Name: Shark Attack

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Name: Shark Attack Square

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Name: Shark Attack #2

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