Watching turtles hatch on the beaches of Barbados and being stopped in my tracks by a warthog on safari in Kenya gifted me the travel bug. It became a natural way of life for me to head off to explore somewhere new, swapping an office desk doing paid work as an online editor for voluntary work in animal rescue centres. It led me to Asia, South America, and around the globe, washing elephants in the river in Sri Lanka and feeding a red howler monkey in the forests of Venezuela.
Years later, I got a First in Wildlife Photography, a conceptual degree course looking at the stories behind the images we see of the ‘natural’ world around us. It strikes me, plenty isn’t natural at all. I used my camera to examine ideas behind our perceptions of nature, relationships with other animals and convenience food, and how we quite often manufacture our lived experience out in the wild.
David Attenborough award
In 2008, I captured hundreds of photos of gannets, coming in to crash land on Bass Rock in Scotland. This one bagged me category winner in the David Attenborough Life of Birds photography competition.
Undergraduate dissertation of the year
Awarded by The Institute of Critical Animal Studies
King Kong
The effects of film, imagery and literature on perceptions of gorillas
Image by Britta Jaschinski
Ask me anything about King Kong and I’m likely to know the answer (:
Next on my study path came a postgrad in anthrozoology, but these days I’m working in copywriting and on an immersive experience.
