Local sport hunter and fisherman Martin Phillips recently traded his rifle for a camera with a good deal of success. A member of the Yorkton Wildlife Federation (YWF), Phillips entered several wildlife photos in the annual YWF awards last year where one of the photos captured first place. The photograph of a young bear in a tree was submitted to the provincial competition as the result of the win.
Much to his surprise and delight, Phillips was recently notified that the picture was selected as the top Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation (SWF) entry.
A retired area teacher, Phillips took up photography about four years ago. A hunter and outdoorsman, he enjoys wildlife photography. While his stated photographic preference is to record the moment and capture the image, he finds occasionally his photographs also become a bit of an avenue for artistic expression.
Phillips recalls shooting the winning photo was a bit of an adventure. He and his brother Fred, who live about five miles east of Yorkton, were preparing for harvest. As the two were working in the yard, he noticed Fred's dogs barking up a storm. When he went to check on the source of the dogs' excitement, Phillips discovered the young bear up a tree in the yard. "Probably when I was 40 I would have gone home for the rifle, but now since I take pictures, I went home for the camera," he reports.
Phillips managed to shoot quite a number of pictures of the bear up the tree watching while he took pictures of it. "It got to the point where he was actually throwing bark at me. He got pretty tired of me down there," Phillips chuckles. He suspects the young bear was possibly a two-year-old. "I discovered later that momma was in the vicinity but luckily for me she wasn't in the nearby vicinity," he says.
Phillips says that while he enjoys photography in general, he's drawn to wildlife photography because he enjoys the outdoors. "I like to carry the camera along because you never know what you're going to see. You could be taking a picture of anything from a frog to a mushroom to an eagle sitting in a tree," he lists.
In addition to snapping a photograph, Phillips also enjoys doing his own processing work at home. He has a computer and a printer which can print photos as large as 13 by 19 inches. He uses a program called Elements which allows him to do his own cropping as well as other processes. "I can almost go back and retake the picture," he states.
He's displayed his photos locally at Cherrydale Golf Club and at the Yorkton Bowl Arena. "It makes you feel good if somebody looks at a picture you took and admires it," he admits.
Phillips credits digital photography with encouraging photography as a hobby. "Right now with the cameras that are available almost anybody can do it and you can get some pretty marvelous pictures," he suggests. He also likes the digital camera because of its instant feedback.
He doesn't usually sell his photos. He either gives them away or donates them as he did to the six hanging at the Women's Health Centre.
Most of the nature photography Phillips does is done either in the early morning or late afternoon because a good picture is all in the light, he reports. "If you have nice sunlight with shadows and it gives you interesting colors that you don't necessarily see when you're taking the picture. You often don't see them until you take the picture home and try to process it," he says.
His current camera is a Cannon D7 which he suggests is a very sophisticated piece of equipment. "Matter of fact I have to get the dang book out half the time to figure out what I should be doing next," Phillips admits. But he's becoming more adept with the D7 as he makes more use of it.
He uses a 50 x 500 mm zoom lens for early morning wildlife pictures. He also carries an 18 x 250mm lens for things that surprise him as well as closer work. Close-up lenses which allow for macro photography complete his equipment inventory.
