conservation photography

This episode of LensFlareLive is brought to you by NatureScapes.Net and your host Dave Warner. In this week’s episode, panelists Greg Downing, EJ Peiker and special guest Carl Donohue cover everything from camera gear to bird blinds. In addition, they answer questions that came in via email, Twitter and from the live listening audience.

Click HERE for full show notes

Carl Donohue grew up in rural Australia and left his small hometown of Bathurst when he was 21. He went to Atlanta, GA, USA, to study guitar. He plays guitar, teaches guitar, guides backpacking trips in Alaska, and sells photographs. Oddly enough, most of his time is spent on a darn computer trying to make all of that happen.  He is confused about how it eats his time.

Carl is a passionate lover of nature and all things wild; more and more he feels most at home when in the backcountry. Well, not so much when it’s raining and nasty out, but when the weather co-operates with him, there’s nothing quite like it. Photographing his experiences there has helped him to pay more attention, to see more deeply, to be more fully aware of the experience. He trys to represent that experience in his images.. You can get more information about Carl by visiting his website.

Greg Downing is a professional nature photographer specializing in birds. He has been traveling the world teaching professional and amateur photographers for more than a decade hosting workshops and seminars.

As an internationally recognized photographer, Greg’s numerous publishing credits include books, advertising campaigns and editorial publications such as Birding Magazine, Outdoor Photographer Magazine, Birder’s World, National Geographic and many others.

He is currently the Publisher for the online nature photography magazine; NatureScapes.Net, which was created as an exchange for nature photographers.

EJ Peiker is a professional freelance Nature Photographer. He was born in 1960 in Augsburg, Germany in the German state of Bavaria near the Alps. His family moved to Mansfield, Ohio, in 1969 right before his 9th birthday. He became a citizen of the United States of America in 1975 and lived in Ohio until 1979 when he began attending Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

His original goal was to attend the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs but after his distance vision deteriorated late in high school, it precluded him from becoming an Air Force Pilot, EJ followed plan B which was set in motion when he inherited his grandfathers electronics workbench several years earlier. At Purdue, EJ earned a Bachelors Degree in Electrical Engineering and also completed graduate studies in Microelectronics and Semiconductor Physics. For nearly 27 years, he worked for the Intel Corporation in California, New Mexico, Oregon, and Arizona where EJ was engaged in the production of the microprocessors, chip-sets, and communication chips that power modern Personal Computers, Workstations, File Servers, Super Computers and the Internet.

Since 1994, EJ has lived in the south-central Arizona city of Chandler, a suburb southeast of Phoenix in the Sonoran Desert. He has two sons, Nicholas (20) and Gregory (15). Nick is currently attending Arizona State University in Tempe and is in the W.P. Carey Finance program. Greg is in High School. EJ has formally studied photography at the University of New Mexico, the Rocky Mountain School of Photography, and participated in photography seminars and workshops led by several renowned photographers including John Shaw, Arthur Morris, John and Barbara Gerlach, Charles Glatzer and the Nikon Corporation.

Podcast on iTunesTo listen to the full podcast interview, click on the player’s forward arrow below. You can also play the Podcast in a pop up window, download it OR subscribe to it via iTunes. To find out when the next live show is going to air, visit our Live Shows page.

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LensFlare 35 is a weekly show brought to you by Dave Warner. In this week’s episode, Dave interviews Conservation Photographer Daniel Beltrá. Daniel is a Spanish photographer based in Seattle. He brings the sensibility and craft of a news photographer to the fields of nature and the environment, making images which he hopes will spur greater respect and conservation of those subjects. He has documented several expeditions by Greenpeace to the Brazilian Amazon, the Arctic, the Southern Oceans and the Patagonian Ice Fields, among many others.

This year, Daniel was awarded the Prince’s Rain Forest Project given via the Sony World Photography Awards. The award, granted by Prince Charles, sent Daniel for three months to the Congo, Amazon and Indonesian rain forests to create photos for a book, website and traveling exhibition about the perilous fate that the world’s rain forests face.

In this episode, Daniel talks about being a photojournalist in Spain, the things that caused him to convert to conservation photography, the Prince’s Rain Forest Project, the environment, Greenpeace, and what it was like to be ABC News’ Person of the Week. We created a special video of Daniel’s images with his explanation of each that plays (above) and then the full podcast interview is below.

Equipment, Software and sites mentioned in this podcast: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 1DS Mark III, 16-35 mm lens, 24-70mm lens, 70-200mm lens, 100-400mm lens, 500mm lens, extenders, Pelican Cases, Think Tank Bags, Wimberly Head, Adobe Photoshop, Polar Obsession by Paul Nicklen.

Show Sponsors: ExpoImaging, Inc., ScanCafe (provide code LF35 for a 20% discount off your first order), Podcast network commercials from Rosh Sillars New Media Photographer and Jim Goldstein EXIF and beyond

Podcast on iTunesTo listen to the full podcast interview, click on the player’s forward arrow below. You can also play the Podcast in a pop up window, download it OR subscribe to it via iTunes. You can also download a List of Questions (PDF format) that I ask in the interview.

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LensFlare 35 is a weekly show brought to you by Dave Warner. In this week’s episode, Dave interviews Canon Photographer Gabby Salazar. Gabby is a 22 year-old from Greensboro, North Carolina. She has traveled throughout North America and to over fifteen countries to take photographs. In 2002 Gabby won the Nature’s Best Photography Youth Category and in 2004, she was named BBC Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year. In September of 2008, Gabby was recognized by Glamour Magazine as one of the Top 10 College Women in the United States for her work with children, photography and the environment.

(C) Gabby Salazar

In this episode, Gabby talks about her focus, her travels, how she was able to PAY for that travel at such a young age, her favorite places to photograph, the National Park Service Artist in Residence program, her generation’s approach to photography, and use of conservation photography to help spread knowledge of environmental issues.

Equipment and Software mentioned in this podcast: Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon 24-70 mm lens, Canon 100-400 mm lens, Canon 180mm macro lens, Canon EFS 10-22 mm lens, Adobe Lightroom, Noise Ninja, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Canon Cable Release.

Show Sponsors: ExpoImaging, Inc., ScanCafe

To listen to the full podcast interview, click on the player’s forward arrow below. You can also play the Podcast in a popup window, download it OR subscribe to it via iTunes. We created a special video of Gabby’s images with her explanation of each that opens in a popup window, just click, watch and listen.

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