Can you describe the very first nature photograph you took that made you realize, “This is what I want to do”? What was the subject, and what kind of equipment were you holding in your hands at that moment?
I honestly don’t remember the very first nature picture I took, but I vividly remember a one-month solo trip to the Falkland Islands many years ago. These were the days before digital cameras, autofocus, huge-capacity super-fast memory cards, image-processing software, things we take for granted today, even as we complain about autofocus being too slow or imprecise.
I spent one afternoon sitting at the edge of a penguin rookery. The Gentoos were cruising in the bay, waiting for the right moment to come ashore, while a Leopard Seal patrolled the shallows, waiting for an opportunity to seize one of them. Understandably, the birds were nervous. Every so often, a small group would jump ashore and rush a few meters toward the safety of the beach. I spent hours trying to catch the moment the birds leaped and sprayed all around them. Manually focusing on my 500 mm lens didn’t make things easy: there was no single picture of birds landing, so I had to refocus all the time. In the end, I captured just one successful image of a jump, and I was extremely happy.
Beeching Gentoo Penguins (Falkland Islands, 1996)
A few days later, I was sitting in a colony of black-browed albatrosses, trying to photograph them as they approached land. It proved impossible. I was disappointed, but the image of those birds flying around is still in my head. Back then, we worked with 36-exposure rolls of film. Today, filling a roll of film cartridge took me less than two seconds. I had left my long lens on the tripod and retreated to a sheltered spot to change the film. As I was mid-change, the South Polar Skua I had been trying to photograph all day came to inspect my gear – and landed right on top of my lens. I only had one camera, and it was empty…”
Every photographer remembers their first “real” setup. What did your early gear look like, and how did those technical limitations actually help you develop the fieldcraft and patience you use today?
In 2012, I was so impressed by seeing and hearing Cory’s Shearwaters return to their nests in the pitch-black Azores that I knew I had to try to photograph them in flight at night. I had no idea how to begin. It was the very start of my “Petrels by Night” project.
A year later, I went to Stockholm Island (Wales) and tried to photograph incoming Manx Shearwaters at night. I had a digital camera, a 70-200 mm lens, and a single flash. It didn’t take long to realize I was even more helpless than the Manxies sitting on the ground and trying to get airborne. It would take two more years of trial before I finally captured my very first nocturnal in-flight picture of that same species on the same island.
Manx Shearwaters leaving their breeding area on Stockholm Island (Wales) before the first daylight: first in-flight image of the “Petrels by Night” project (2015)
However, I realized that using a flash or a few flashes at night disturbed the birds, so there was no other option but to switch to infrared photography. It meant starting the learning curve from zero again. At the beginning, the results were terrible until I learned how to work. I also learned I needed much more equipment (IR flashes) in the field. It took me six years, but I was motivated.
First infrared picture of the “Petrels by Night” project (Wales, 2018). Landing Manx Shearwater in the densest colony on earth on Stockholm Island.
Wildlife photography is often 90% searching and 10% actually photographing. How has integrating thermal tools changed your workflow? Does it feel like you’ve gained a “sixth sense” when trying to locate subjects in dense brush or low light?
As a photographer specializing in nocturnal imagery, thermal equipment has fundamentally changed my work. Before I started using my first Pulsar Axion, I didn’t know where birds were flying at night; for certain silent species, it was nearly impossible to tell if they were even in the air. Of course, we found them in the nests, but we didn’t have a clue if they arrived early in the night or much later. We didn’t know whether they flew straight to their nests or circled first, or at what altitude they were travelling… It was a lot of guesswork, and in many cases, I had to try again, night after night, trying to learn from a few glimpses caught in my red head torch. I often changed locations from one night to the next, but it was only because I felt (and hoped) a spot a few meters further would yield better results.
Thermal tools have changed dramatically. I would ask scientists where they expected the birds to fly at night and would set up my gear at that spot on the first night. Then, we would retreat and observe what was going on with a thermal camera. In quite a few cases, we saw that the birds were not flying exactly at the indicated spot, but a few meters to the right or to the left. Then, the next night, I would move my equipment, and the results would start to arrive. For my project “Petrels by Night”, thermal devices have meant a quantum leap.
Mediterranean Storm-Petrel arriving in the colony (Spain, 2025). Bart: “Photographed during the second night, I worked at the entrance of the cave, after observing them during the first night with a thermal camera and finding out that they were not exactly flying where I had put my equipment.”
When I started using a thermal binocular instead of a monocular, I could continue watching in a pitch-black night for hours, until my arms could no longer hold the device. It allowed me to see many more birds in the air (including the ones that were not vocal) and to see behavior that had never been seen before.
Fortunately, thermal equipment proved to be equally useful in the daytime. Many animals are masters at hiding during daylight hours and only become active at night. Woodcocks, jack snipe, common quail, roe deer, and even hares are very difficult to find in broad daylight since they don’t move and blend into the vegetation. A thermal camera allows me to detect, count, and photograph them.
I regularly go for a walk in a nearby forest, and I hardly ever leave home without my binoculars. In almost 20 years, I had never seen a woodcock in that forest until a week ago, when I detected one hiding under a tree. What made the difference? I now hardly leave home without a thermal device. Coupled with my standard binoculars, it allows me to detect a bird first and then confirm its identification.
We often see the beautiful final result, but not the hardship behind it. What has been your most physically or mentally demanding wait for a single frame, and how do you maintain focus when the elements (or the animals) aren’t cooperating?
As part of my “Petrels by Night” project, I wanted to make a nocturnal in-flight picture of a Cape-Verde Petrel or Gongon (Pterodroma feae). During my first expedition to Cabo Verde, I was lucky enough to take a few pictures of this species – the first-ever made at night – but I wanted better quality, so I returned the next season.
I worked for three weeks, night after night, saw the birds with my thermal camera, but they never came close enough to trigger my infrared system. It was a matter of a few meters, maybe even a few centimeters, but I hadn’t taken a single picture. Then, finally, on the last night, I did a test by triggering the flashes with my hand. What did I see on the back screen of my camera? In the background, out of focus but still clearly visible, was… a Gongon. The first image of that expedition!
Then I returned for a third attempt, and after a few nights, we finally got lucky. During that one night, I took more pictures than in the two previous campaigns together. Then the weather changed, and our window of opportunity closed. With only two nights left, we gave it a try on another island in a different colony. After detecting a nocturnal flight corridor of the displaying courting birds, we repositioned the equipment and finally, literally hours before we would fly back home, we made the dream image of the bird in its natural environment.
A nocturnal image of a Cape-Verde Petrel or Gongon during a courtship flight above its breeding territory (Cabo Verde, 2025).
Some photographers find themselves drawn back to one specific species again and again. Which animal or bird has become your main focus, and what is it about their “character” that you find most compelling to capture through a lens?
In my case, it is a group of birds rather than a single species. When I discovered the nocturnal life of seabirds during a visit to a Cory’s Shearwater colony in the Azores, I was captivated; at that very moment, I had a dream: I wanted to photograph these amazing birds in flight at night. No one had ever done that before, and I wanted to try. After three years of developing, testing, learning, and, most of all, making lots of trials and even more errors, I made my first nocturnal in-flight picture, I launched the idea of “Petrels by Night”. My intention was to photograph at night and in flight during their visits to the breeding colonies, all 25 species, subspecies, and season groups of West Palearctic petrels. Almost 14 years later, the counter stands at 24 species “done” with only one more to go. I am fascinated by these birds and by the challenge of photographing the invisible – of making the invisible visible.
There is a fine line between getting the shot and disturbing the subject. How do you use thermal technology to scout and position yourself ethically, ensuring that the animal remains undisturbed and unaware of your presence?
There are a few different situations. With nocturnal seabirds, human presence in a colony during the breeding season is not a problem, as long as you don’t use light, and, of course, don’t enter the colony to stand on nests or burrows. Thermal technology allows us to see and study without disturbance, as there is no emitted light. The birds don’t mind you at all.
With nocturnal mammals, things are different. Most of the time, they will have detected you before you detect them – their sense of smell and hearing are far better than ours – and the simple fact that “something” has stopped is kind of a threat to them. Even if you keep your distance, they may start to move. If you want to count a population and define their territories, the only real solution is to stay on the paths and avoid moving into the forest. This limits the disturbance.
The same is true during the day when looking for hidden animals. A hare, a woodcock, or a roe deer will usually detect you before you detect them. A cyclist, a jogger, or a simple passer-by is less of a threat to them, as you, as an observer, are the only one who stops. Again, don’t move off the paths and keep your distance. If you want to photograph them, use the longest lens possible to maintain a safe distance. Go down on your knees to “break” the human silhouette, don’t make any noise, and move slowly.
If all goes well, you take the picture, the animal remains hidden, and you slowly retreat. When you check again a few hours later with your thermal camera, the animal is still in the same place, not having moved an inch. That makes me a happy photographer. You shouldn’t forget that thermal equipment allows you to detect more animals than any unaided observation – even with binoculars. You now have an “advantage” which you didn’t have before. I feel “blind” if I go into the forest without a thermal device, but we should be very well aware that thermal equipment is a kind of “intrusion” into the animals’ world, and we must be very careful with its use.
For a beginner who is currently struggling with “empty” SD cards and missed opportunities, what is the most important lesson you’ve learned about the relationship between a photographer, their gear, and the wild?
No matter how good the gear becomes, it is only a tool. It is the user who makes the difference through skill, experience, patience, motivation, and drive. There are two important ways to improve your photography: first, learn as much as possible about your subject before you try to photograph it; and second, spend more time in the field. Not just a little more, but three, four, or five times more. Good luck comes with time spent in the field.
For example, I wanted to photograph a newborn roe deer in the forest for my project “Invisible?”. A friend and I spent a lot of time mapping the territories and learning where the animals hide, but the dense undergrowth was a big challenge, even for our thermal cameras. It took us three years before we found two newborn roe deer in a place where we hadn’t expected them at all. We were hiding behind some bushes when one of them walked almost right up to us before slowly walking away.
In fact, I forgot the most basic rule, the one where it all starts: bring your camera. It may sound obvious, but the best gear, the biggest lenses, and the fastest cameras are useless if you don’t take them with you in the field. Here lies the caveat: there is always a tradeoff between top-quality equipment, which is heavy and cumbersome, and slightly lower-quality gear that is more portable. Putting the financial aspect aside, each person has to find their own balance for their specific needs.