Alaska 2016

I prefer to work with big alpha animals – elephants have a greater pull on me
than mice. This is true also with birds and this has drawn me towards the
American Bald eagle – a magnificent and emblematic creature with an
astonishing wingspan of up to seven feet.
The difficulty is capturing imagery that captures fresh detail – the world is not
short of images of this bird – indeed they adorn homes in America from the
White House down.
The starting point for me was always going to be the wings – their size and
textural detail. However, the more I worked on this project in Alaska, the more I
was disappointed by my “in flight” work – I struggled to do the wings justice.
The problem was simply that in flight, the wings do look big, but there is a
disconnect to anything that gives real scale – a “big sky” does not help as it
excludes much of what could help define and give context.
I travelled to the fishing village of Homer – a great place to spot great Bald
eagles, especially in the winter and spring and sure enough there were a great
number of eagles on the beach. It was then a question of getting sufficiently
close to work with as small a telephoto as possible. Instinctively, eagles will
tend to take off away from an intruder, not towards him and to engineer the
effect captured I had to use decoys to encourage the eagle’s first wing
movement in my direction.
Finally, it came off – and I think this is indeed a fresh image of a bald eagle.
What remarkable wings and all the more remarkable at take-off.

Digital Pigment Print on Archival
315gsm Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta Paper
Frame included
Hand signed and numbered on the front by the artist
Includes a Certificate of Authenticity

Available Sizes (Framed Size)
Large: 71″ x 78″ (180 cm x 198 cm)

Standard: 52″ x 57″ (132 cm x 145 cm)

Available Editions
Large: Edition of 12
Standard: Edition of 12