In 2011, when I walked from an office in Auckland, New Zealand, to commence a new life abroad, not knowing what it would entail, I carried with me little more than a point-and-shoot Sony camera. I was leaving everything I knew behind me, about to replace my suits and satchels for shorts, a teeshirt, and a backpack, to start life anew. It was a truly daunting experience, but I am convinced that had I not done it I would not be here today. I did what Reginald Perrin had done - a reference to someone that many today might not understand.
For years I traveled, through Australia, the Indo-Pacific, Asia, Europe, and America, all the time getting better, all the time becoming more healthy, and all the time upgrading my camera system. My little point-and-shoot that served me so well for so long found itself replaced with series of DSLRs and numerous lenses, filters and tripods. My camera equipment today weighs more than my entire worldly possesions back in 2011 - the 20kg I'd carted around in my backpack. I sometimes think about going back to certain places I've been to recapture some of the images I've taken using my new gear, but life has taught me that it doesn't pay to look back too much, or to revisit somewhere that you have already been, because I have never found revisiting somewhere truly special to be as rewarding the second time around.
Over time photography became a hobby, and as my techniques improved, so too did my knowledge of plants, fungii and animals - a life different from that in the oceans on which I'd formerly obsessed. Today, equiped with telephoto, macro and wide-angle lenses, a typical weekend will see me immersed in nature photographing birds, bugs, bats, snakes, lizards, frogs, mushrooms, trees and landscapes, a small selection of which are shown above.