Hawkeye Photograph

Rob Whiteley, originally from Leeds in Yorkshire, England, has enjoyed photography for well over four decades, since he first received a Kodak Brownie 44a 35mm camera as a child, for his birthday. The choice of aperture on that device was limited to two fixed settings of f/11 and f/16 and an even smaller choice of only one shutter speed – 1/40th sec! Rob studied the now lost art of developing photographic film and its very unforgiving creative applications (one roll of film – no mistakes tolerated) at the Harrogate Institute of Photography in the 70’s – and began to cultivate the ability to frame each photograph so that very little, or no cropping would be required in the darkroom. Thus each shot was constructed through the lens first (or viewfinder at that time) which meant that still life applications tended to be the order of the day due to the set up time for each picture. Sometime later, Rob progressed to a Polaroid One-Step instant camera (everyone had one – right?) – which kept him out of the dark room, but definitely sacrificed his “post-click” creativity. Nowadays, a digital SLR is the bread and butter of his photographic repertoire and, armed with a post-click photoshop software package, he has fun creating “pop culture” renderings of wildlife pics, many taken in his favourite setting – the Kruger National Park, which is the second-largest game reserve in Africa and the largest in South Africa. The Kruger is the flagship of South African National Parks, spanning 360km from North to South and 65km from East to West. The scenic beauty of Limpopo is situated to the west, the lush Mpumalanga to the south and Zimbabwe to the North. It has nine entrance gates and is home to the famous Big Five, the Little Five and the birding Big Six, in addition to a range of fauna and flora unique to the area. The “Mother City” of Cape Town also provides a plentiful supply of wildlife and scenery, especially where the cold currents of Southern Atlantic meet the warm climes of the Indian Ocean at Cape Point (or at Cape Agulhas – 100kms east, depending on who you believe). Rob is always on the lookout for new studies, angles and backdrops to add to his gamut of expositions and his passion for photography is constantly expanding into varying innovative arrays which he will continue to share with followers, collectors and art lovers alike.