Wild Woodburn Photography
Hotel in Johannesburg

Wild Woodburn Photography specialises in outdoor photography of lodges, boutique hotels, travel and landscapes. Woodburnphoto travels and writes for multiple magazines as well as providing photos for magazines, books and internet sites. Underwater photography of whales, sharks, dolphins and yoga photos.

The Woodburn's both aspire to achieving excellence in their respective disciplines and see international competitions as a key arena to display their technical and creative skills. Either member of the Wild Woodburn team is available for assignment. Taking the photographs is not the only part of the process. The support of Avril Woodburn and Clara Woodburn is vital to being able to get to where these subjects live and with the increasing digital age the time spent post processing imagery takes it toll on the photographers availability. Having dived most commercial dive sites in South Africa many times there were three futures which needed to be selected from. Sharks, whales, and people in water are the current flavour for the basis of my work. My active participation across many activities allow me to catch imagery in an engaging and unique manner. What currently keeps me busy is leading unique and adventurous expeditions to capture specialist images such as Tuna and Mako sharks, Tiger sharks and Whales. So why does an underwater photographer want a DSLR and housing when surely the money involved to purchase the system is beyond most budgets, and the size of the system means it isn’t as easy to handle or as affordable as a good point and shoot underwater. Another early upside of a Point and Shoot is to see if you actually enjoy taking photos underwater. The fundamental reasons for upgrading are to improve the quality of your photography. The first improvement from point and shoot to SLR is the fact that the photographer looks through the lens and sees what the sensor will record, this allows for creativity beyond what the TV rendition on the rear screen of a point and shoot can provide. Improved image quality is delivered because the amount of glass in SLR lenses and the sophistication of the CCD sensors in top end DSLRS deliver a much better image. The other reasons one upgrades is to take advantage of a larger amount of options a professional or semi pro level camera provides when taking the image. Also be aware of how big the housing will be and what the buoyancy of the housing will be like. Housings are made of different materials such as polymers which allow you see right into the camera, good for seeing flooding early and being able to see the camera buttons you are pushing from the outside. Housings made out of metal have a rear window inserted so as to see the playback screen and therefore need more instructions on the outside to enable you to understand what you are doing with all those buttons. The advantage of metal housings is their size, they are made to fit the camera more snuggly so end up being smaller than polycarbonate housings and take the beating of being handled on boats better. Based on your needs and how you will use your housing be aware what the material of the housing will do and how it will effect its performance. By the time you are ready to expand into a housed system you will have realized the invaluable nature of underwater lighting. Strobes are a must when shooting stills and video as they provide white light that brings back the colour to underwater subject matter that beyond a few meters can only reflect back blue light. Nothing will make up for a solid understanding of the fundamentals of underwater strobe light and bespoke strobes designed to work with the housing. Andrew Woodburn has been the Divestyle staff photographer for over 5 years and runs underwater photo workshops, leads dive tours and can advise you on equipment as needed.