Robin Ward (wildlife photographer)
Robin Ward born (12.03.1969) in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, UK.
Work
Company Director and amateur wildlife photographer and author, living with his wife and two daughters in the Forest of Dean. Has written numerous features for BBC Gloucestershire on wildlife in the Forest of Dean, including snakes and wild boar.
List of BBC Features
1 Wild Boar
2 Birds of Prey
3 Slimbridge WWT
4 Photography in the Forest
Early Years
Robin's parents Fred and Olive taught him to respect wildlife from a very early age, this accompanied by his own personal passion for wildlife care and conservation secured his future as a well known and respected wildlife lover and photographer. His father Fred passed on his passion for the adder (Vipera berus) to Robin, helping him to find his first snake at the age of six. For years he would lye in bed at night reading wildlife and nature books, dreaming AbOUT the forest and all the creatures, which live in it. When Robin left school in 1985 he found employment in a local factory and drifted away from his passion as money and girls came on the scene, but he never forgot his passion and in 1993 he bought his first camera.
Photography
Tired of telling people what he was seeing, he thought he might as well show them and he took up wildlife filming, he soon realised there were limitations on what he could achieve with the low budget equipment he was using, but his audience thought it was great so he carried on for a couple of years until he took his first photograph with a SLR camera. This was the turning point, he purchased his first SLR, a Canon 50e and armed with half a dozen rolls of film, took off on his first photographic expedition. Over the years digital equipment became available and it wasn't long before he purchased his first DSLR camera, the Canon 400d. This revolutionised the way Robin took photographs. Instead of taking dozens of photographs and then having to wait for them to be developed, he could see his subject within seconds on the back of his camera. This was a massive plus for Robin as his main subjects were the adder (Vipera berus) and the grass snake (Natrix natrix). Being shy and secretive, the snakes didn't hang around for long, so Robin had to work fast to get a decent photograph, but with digital he could get the shot 90% of the time and without having the lengthy developing period.
Achievements
As well as having his work published on-line, Robin has had some of his work featured in BBC calendars, with the proceeds going to Children in Need. Most recently he has one of his prized adder photographs being exhibited in a reptile exhibition in Serbia, which will be touring the whole of Russia throughout 2009.