Take a walk on the wild side (From The Oxford Times)

Take a walk on the wild side

12:29pm Thursday 20th August 2009 in Leisure By Reg Little

W hen it comes to spectacular images of wildlife, you would not be wrong in thinking that photography magazines in India are overwhelmed with pictures of that vast country’s native mammals, birds and insects.

India has long been the destination of many specialist wildlife photographers, wishing to capture the likes of elephants, tigers, wild dogs and mongoose in their natural habitats. So you can take it that it requires something pretty special to impress Indian picture editors.

But 16-year-old Joe Kellard (pictured right), from Abingdon, has managed to do just that, after his photographs were spotted on the Royal Photographic Society’s website. Joe, an aspiring nature photographer who has just finished his GCSEs, does not have to travel far to take his pictures.

Not for him long flights to exotic nature reserves. He simply packs up his equipment and cycles to Radley Lakes, five minutes away, or the Thames just down the road.

His pictures of swans, red kites, owls, blackbirds, wasps and dragon flies have nevertheless been causing quite a stir in India. In fact they were so highly rated by India’s leading imaging magazine, Smart Photography, that they published many of his photographs in the magazine’s regular ‘Master Craftsman’ feature.

Joe, who lives in Abingdon, was taken aback by the praise heaped on his work.

“To call Joe Kellard a master craftsman would be an understatement,” Indian readers were told. “This is because this teenage whizz-kid defies imagination and reflects a maturity that is beyond comprehension. The reason —- this aspiring nature photographer doesn’t carry the burden of his past laurels, and is constantly pushing his creative abilities to the fullest.”

For Joe, who has been taking wildlife pictures since being given a camera on his 13th birthday, photography has always been about having fun, either when it means getting up at 4am to get that perfect sunrise shot.

“I have always been interested in wildlife, through my parents,” said Joe, whose impressive collection of pets includes a bearded dragon lizard, a royal python and corn snake.

He was a keen supporter of the Save Radley Lakes campaign, to stop the dumping of fuel ash from Didcot power station, with the lakes for him a precious place to pursue his hobby.

“I often go there and spend hours walking around the surrounding wilderness, photographing every interesting creature I see there. I can take hundreds of shots of a single species if the encounter lasts a long time. But sometimes I can come down to a few seconds, or even a split second, and I will end up with one or even two shots.”

Occasionally he persuades his mum Luana and dad Simon to drive him to the New Forest or a bird reserve to photograph a particular species. It can involve spending a day in a hide and still returning home empty-handed.

One of his most memorable images, gracing the cover of this month’s Oxfordshire Limited Edition, captures a deer in Richmond Park as the sun rose.

“It was a freezing morning,” he recalled. “The sun was coming up and a mist created these wonderful golden, orange colours. Then I saw a deer emerging from the ferns. It was a magical moment. It was only later I realised that there was a second deer in the photograph on the left.”

Recently he finished in the top 11 in his age category in the Digital Camera Magazine Young Photographer of the Year in wildlife photography. And already he is considering taking it up as a profession.

“I have this idea of taking a photograph of every major British species over the next decade — animals, birds and insects and then putting them all in a book, telling the whole story.

“I think it is important to understand an animal’s behaviour. Once you do, you have higher chances of capturing the dream shot. It means you can predict the animal’s next move, know its circle of fear and how to get within it and know where they like to hunt or reside.

“Often it means having to wait for hours before something comes along. You have to be prepared to just spend most of the day sitting in a hide, bored out of your mind.

“But usually patience pays off and I will get a shot which will make me forget everything I have endured.”

But as Joe knows better than most, that is the nature of the work whether you are “shooting” wildlife in Radley or the Bay of Bengal.