Peter: “You are a highly successful and artistic photographer so how did this all start for you?”
Geoff: “I was brought up in northern England beside the sea and as a Sixyear-old I would wander onto the beach and see interesting things, talk to the fisherman and I became fascinated by natural history. I started collecting the “I Spy books” for kids and the Brooke Bond Tea cards with images of birds and mammals. I liked art and loved natural history, but I also got interested in gemology and went to work at a jeweler’s, then studied gemology at university and became a consultant working for many of the big international gem companies.I had left natural history behind me when suddenly, at the age of 30, I came down with measles. This left me with a squint and changed my eyesight so I could no longer see through a small lens. My career as a gemologist finished abruptly, and I started working in hospitality to fund my interest in photography. One day I was watching on TV Chris Packham interview Laurie Campbell, the great Scottish natural history photographer, and I decided then and there that, this was what I wanted to do – be a wildlife photographer, and really, I haven’t looked back since.“
Peter: “How did you make yourself different from all the other photographers?
Geoff: “I have always been interested in the wildlife on my doorstep and I am not a keen traveler, so I really focused on northern and central England and became an expert on the wildlife of the Peak District and West Cheshire. I discovered special places, where others hadn’t been and worked to capture images that were different. At that stage most photographers were taking portrait images of animals with long lenses, so I started trying to capture the animals in their natural environment. I used a panoramic camera, the Hasselblad X-Pan, and I took a photograph of a red grouse in the heather moorland of The Peak District and this won International Bird Photographer of the Year in 2006 when Bence Mate was the runner up. Later that year, I had a stall at the Bird Watching Fair held each year at Rutland Water with my photographs on display and for sale. Several people said my work was special and started buying my images, the grouse photograph sold 11 times in the one weekend. I have always been artistic and good at presenting the images, they looked nice and I thought – well maybe this is the direction I should follow. There were a few false starts and then one day the company I was working for made me redundant, so I just went for it and spent a month writing out a business plan to be a professional photographer. I was good at selling, good at natural history and I don’t mind it when people say “No” because if one door closes so another door opens. I looked at people who were successful in photography and three inspired me. Galen Rowell the great American mountaineer and adventure photographer who took his camera to places no one else had been and I believe gave a special perspective on his photographs. The second was Ernst Hass because he was eclectic and just liked producing good photographs. The third was Jim Brandenburgh, I related to him since, like me, he was working on his own doorstep to get special images of the animals he knew. I started selling my photographs through the usual outlets like Getty and met some really interesting people working in the British Wildlife Trusts.”
Peter: “So how did you end up in Spain?”
Geoff: “In 2010 I was running a photo workshop and this nice girl turns up and we got talking and she invited me over to Spain where she said the wildlife was really spectacular. She was an incredibly intelligent and interesting girl and she had strong views on conservation. She gave me new insights into life such as being humble and celebrating the success of others. Spain is brimming with wildlife and really is the biodiversity hotspot of Europe. For example, all the fungi that were rare in Britain were plentiful here and truly spectacular. I really liked the Spanish culture, good food, they like enjoying themselves and they are passionate about conservation. They are also very generous, complimentary and supportive of other photographers. It’s just not the wildlife but the landscapes here are wonderful, take the Rio Tinto, a world class landscape with a red river that runs into Cadiz harbor which is both bizarre and beautiful.”
Peter: “What got you to start a gallery?”
Geoff: “Well I married that girl and moved to Spain and one day she was scouring the internet and said she had found work by this guy Peter Lik and she said – as a professional photographer this guy gets it, he takes nice photographs, packages them well and sells them at a good price. Lik has galleries in New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas and produces good work that looks really fabulous when it is hung on people’s walls. I was inspired and opened my first gallery in Ronda, in Andalucía. The location was an old bicycle shop that was a mess, thick in grease with Kung Fu posters on the wall and yet under the mess I could see the floor was made of this beautiful marble. Indeed, I could see by the black line around the edges that this was once an art gallery – – lines to show people to go no closer to the art. Initially I couldn’t sell anything, I had been a salesman originally and yet here I was struggling with the sales. So, I took a year off photography to focus on the business and the right approach. Then when we got going, I sold 15000 Euros worth of photos in the first week, more than I expected to make in the first three months and we haven’t looked back since. By far and away the majority of people we sell to are American tourists, with some Dutch and Canadians. Ronda is made famous by being the burial location of Orson Wells and by Ernest Hemmingway’s book “For Whom The Bell Tolls”. Americansare fascinated by Hemmingway and come here in large numbers and seek a nice memento of Spain and Ronda. We try to provide really good quality work and I’m proud that we are the number one business on Trip Advisor. We take the order and have the photographs in a beautiful high-class Roma frame shipped to them within two weeks. The important thing is to produce good quality work that looks like a beautiful piece of art on someone’s wall and they are proud to be the owner.
Peter: “What other galleries do you have just now?”
Geoff: “We have a wonderful gallery opened in Marbella which is aimed at interior designers rather than selling to tourists. We also have a London gallery opening soon in Mayfair. I would like to see five galleries in the next few years.
Peter: “Were there any naturalists in your life that were influential in your career?”
Geoff: “When I was 16 my parents moved to Cheshire and my friend Chris and I would go and watch animals and then one day I bumped into this very old gentleman who talked about fish and art and birds. He turned out to be Charles Tunnicliffe, the internationally renowned naturalist and painter of British birds. We got talking and when I told him that I collected and really liked the Brooke Bond Tea card paintings he just said … “I painted them”. He was truly inspirational and so I wanted to be a watercolor artist, painting birds and wildlife. As it turned out I just wasn’t good enough and yet I had an artistic streak that helped my photography.
Much later on, when I was an adult, I was working with a guy from Leicestershire Wildlife Trust and he introduced me to Sir David Attenborough. Sir David was such a nice and easy person to talk with and we seemed to get on really well. I was telling him that I had a massive intertest in herpetology and in particular the breeding and care of chameleons. He said he was starting a new film called “Life in Cold Blood” so he invited me out to Tanzania to help with the filming of pygmy chameleons. This was an eye opener for me and spurred me on with new aspects of photography and I subsequently won a couple of competitions.
Peter: “You have some fabulous photographs of the very rare Iberian lynx and now a hide where people can photograph them, how did this all come about?”
Geoff: “Lynx (Lynx pardinus) are not easy, and they don’t always present themselves well and seem to just dissolve into the vegetation when you are watching them. It took me a long time to work out the behavior of the animals and how they react to people. They feed almost exclusively on rabbits and you will never see them unless rabbits are nearby, and they don’t want to walk past large groups of photographers where they feel uncomfortable. I started to get in with some local people and biologists who really understood the behavior of the lynx. They needed their research funding and they built a high class hide they would consider letting out to responsible groups such as the ones I bring. The trick is not to go where everyone else goes but think like a lynx. and they will make an appearance at this hide since it is built overlooking a lynx track that some lynx use regularly. In spring the females are being courted by one or two males and they are feeding during the day for rabbits and walk past the hide regularly. There are two females and a male in the vicinity, and we are getting a 90% success rate per day. We have never gone two days without a good opportunity for a photograph. The sightings are amazing although of course it comes with a cost since they need money to support their research and conservation. The hide has bunks, cooking facilities and is tastefully done. It’s booked up and is important
Peter: “What advice would you give to upcoming photographers?”
Geoff: “Get to know the animals in your local patch, visit them and see what they are doing at different times of day so you know who they are and their daily behavior and then start photographing them. If you want to get into photography as a business, then think hard about your skills and what you are good at and learn the techniques for selling and interacting well with people – not too strong and not too enthusiastic.”
