Georgina Steytler: From Amateur to Professional

In our interview series “From Amateur to Professional” we will be asking established nature photographers to share their photos and see how their practices have developed, changed, and improved over time. 

You’ll get to see the progression of their images, learn how they got started, and find out how they transitioned from amateur to professional.

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Nature photographer Georgina Steytler’s work is driven by her passion for birds, ethics and conservation.

Over the last decade, Georgina has worked on various conservation projects and teaches the art and ethics of nature photography through workshops, talks and articles. She joins us today to talk about her journey in photography. 

When and why did you first catch the nature photography bug?

As a child, we always had National Geographic magazines in the house and I would spend hours looking at all the amazing images. I think this inspired my love of photography and planted a seed of yearning to be able to take images like that myself. 

Whilst I always did photography as a hobby, it wasn’t until I started volunteering for BirdLife Western Australia in my early 30s that I really started taking wildlife photography seriously.

I got my first big prime lens (500mm F4) and started getting those super sharp images with a creamy background. From then on I was hooked on nature photography, especially birds.

Show us one of the first images you ever took. What did you think of it at the time compared to now?

I always show this image in workshops to show people the difference between good and bad techniques.

When I took the above image, I was using a big prime lens and a very good DSLR. In other words, good equipment doesn’t help if you have a bad technique. The bad technique was to go out taking images at 10 a.m. on a sunny day and standing at the lake’s edge shooting down at the birds.

The result? A very average image taken in contrasty light with a horribly busy background and foreground.

Fast forward to the recent photo of the same species, also taken with a big prime lens and good DSLR, and you can see the difference in aesthetic quality.

This was a result of shooting in very early morning golden light and from ground level.

Same quality equipment but the results are chalk and cheese!

Show us 2 of your favourite photos – one from your early/amateur days, and one from your professional career. Why do you like them, what made you so proud of them, and how do you feel about the older image now?

I love this image (below), and not just because it’s a beautiful bird (look at that face!).

I like it also because, when I took it, I was on a boat cruise in rough seas (and rain) and was so seasick that the skipper speculated it was my vomit that was bringing in the seabirds!

Another of my favourites is the image below.

For many years I had an idea to try and get an image of birds in the water that looked like they were walking ‘in the clouds’. When I came across a cliff overlooking an estuary with wading birds below I saw the possibility of getting the shot I had always wanted.

I went out every morning and evening until one day, the weather was perfect – no wind, a bit of cloud at sunset and 5 pied stilts wading. I zoomed out to 200mm to get the whole scene and took a series of images as the sky, reflected in the water, changed colours.

It was so magical.

The next day I went back and there was a strong wind (no reflections), totally overcast and no birds to be seen.

I still love the older image of the albatross. However, I am increasingly finding myself drawn to habitat images like that of the stilts over close-up portrait-style images. I don’t know if I am just getting old but I am less enthusiastic about shooting with large prime lenses.

I prefer to shoot with a shorter focal length and take images that tell a story about the birds, their habitat and behaviour, as well as being visually appealing. 

When did you decide you wanted to become a professional photographer? How did you transition into this and how long did it take?

The transition into a professional photographer was a gradual process over the course of 10 years.

After I had won a few awards, I gained the confidence to start offering some local bird photography workshops. I also created a more professional website, established a social media presence, and started offering my images as fine art prints.

The combination of the social media presence, competition awards, and professional website meant that I started to be approached by corporate clients and offered paid jobs.

I think one of the biggest reasons for entering competitions is that it raises your profile and gets you known to a broader audience – you never know who is watching! 

Was there a major turning point in your photography career – a eureka moment of sorts?

In 2018 I won a category in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year. As part of the prize, they fly you to London for the awards ceremony in the London Natural History Museum. That awards night changed my life.

I was suddenly surrounded by the world’s best nature photographers and it was incredibly inspiring. Many of them had spent months, if not years, to get amazing nature images.

I realised then that truly great images don’t just happen, they are more often than not the result of research, passion, skill, perseverance and extreme patience.

At the ceremony, there was a big focus on the importance of nature photography to conservation and changing the way we view the world.

After the awards, I was buzzing with enthusiasm and determination to take my photography more seriously and try much harder to capture images of our natural environment that are not only unique and beautiful, but also help to inspire conservation. 

Are there any species, places, or subjects that you have re-visited over time? Could you compare images from your first and last shoot of this? Explain what’s changed in your approach and technique.

One of the subjects that I return to time after time are mudskippers. I just adore them. They are crazy little fish that spend all day having arguments with each other and skipping across the mud.

I love the challenge of getting them airborne, with mud droplets flying all about. I did get a good image of this many years ago by trying to pre-empt when they would jump and then ‘spraying and praying’ (shooting in continuous high shutter speed mode).

I had to pre-empt because if I waited until I saw them leap, I would miss the moment the fish was in the air as it happens so quickly.

However, using that technique meant that I needed to take 3-4000 photos before I got one shot of the mudskipper ‘in-flight’.

It is not a bad photo, but it is a large crop and slightly overexposed.

I am looking forward to going back to shoot the mudskippers again in a few weeks with the Nikon Z8, using the pre-release mode.

In pre-release mode, I just need to have the shutter half-pressed and then when I see the mudskipper jump, press it all the way down and it records images from 1 second before until up to 3 seconds after.

Combined with the 3D animal tracking autofocus, getting a sharp ‘in the air’ mudskipper photo should be very easy and require far fewer frames.

It’s amazing how quickly camera technology is changing the odds in nature photography and making it easier to take shots that used to be almost ‘one in a million’ chances.  

Has anything changed in regard to how you process and edit your images?

When I started doing bird photography, to deal with digital noise it was normal to spend a lot of time in post-processing dealing with digital noise.

These days, AI technology has meant that I can sharpen and denoise an animal image with just the click of a button, such as with Topaz Denoise AI.

As a result, my post-processing is simpler and quicker than it was when I first started out.

What was the biggest challenge you faced starting out, and what’s your biggest challenge now?

I lacked a lot of confidence when I started out and to some extent, it still is my biggest challenge. I think they call it imposter syndrome – the feeling of not being as good as others seem to think you are.

I know another female bird photographer who has won major international awards, and says that she worries about the same thing, so I think it may be especially common amongst female nature photographers.

Nature photography has traditionally been a male-dominated profession, and when I first started out, I had many occasions where male photographers would talk to me as if I did not know how to use a camera.

Thankfully, though, things are changing and that kind of thing rarely happens anymore. Hopefully, the next generation of women in nature photography will have more confidence and believe that they are just as good as any of their male counterparts.

What’s the one piece of advice that you would give yourself if you could go back in time?

Shoot in manual.

I spent years in the beginning shooting in a semi-automatic mode.

It wasn’t until I switched to manual that I became confident enough in my photographic skills to start being more creative (that is, go beyond the bird on a stick style of photography) and develop my own style. Just do it!