Picture gallery

Featured artist:Kevin Elsby

 

CONTINUING our popular series of competitions to win framed prints by north Norfolk artists, we are this week offering a photograph by Aylsham GP Dr Kevin Elsby. The picture, which won a highly commended award in a Royal Photographic Society (RPS) exhibition, is entitled Arctic Terns Fighting.

 

Growing up in Deeside, north Wales, lifelong wildlife fan Kevin became interested in birdwatching as a youngster. His first visit to Norfolk was as a teenager, when, in 1976, he spent much of a family holiday to Cromer watching birds at Hickling and Cley.  While studying medicine at the Royal London Hospital Medical College, he travelled to Kenya as part of an exchange programme and, while on safari, took his

first wildlife photographs. After training as a GP for a further five years in hospitals in Essex, Kent and King’s Lynn, Kevin was offered a post as a full-time partner at the Market Surgery, Aylsham. He has been at the practice for 21 years, and as the pressure of juggling long hours with bringing up a family have eased, he has, over the past 10 years or so, started to take what began as a hobby more seriously. “I started just wanting to take pictures of birds but, over the years, my interest in wildlife has expanded into just about everything,” he said. After gaining an honours degree in natural sciences and environmental sciences, Kevin, who is a member of the wildlife organisations Butterfly Conservation and the British Dragonfly Society, two years ago completed a masters degree in wildlife biology and conservation,

also gaining an associateship distinction in wildlife photography from the RPS.

 

When not working as a GP, Kevin spends his time travelling the world, taking photographs and leading tours for a UK based wildlife holiday company. He also gives lectures to UK wildlife and photography groups, and onboard cruise ships whose destinations have included the Amazon, South Georgia and the Galapagos Islands. Kevin recently spent six weeks in Antarctica as a member of an expedition team. “My favourite experience has to be flying out to Costa Rica on New Year’s Eve in 2006,” Kevin said. “On New Year’s Day, I was 8,500 feet up a mountain

looking at a bird called the Resplendent Quetzel, considered by many the most beautiful bird in the world.”

 

In the future, Kevin hopes to gain a fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society and to continuE travelling to far flung places. “The appeal to me of taking pictures is to try and capture wildlife in its natural environment, but, more than that, to capture animals in action and record their natural behaviour,” he said.



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The following article about my photographic background appeared in the North Norfolk News in the spring of 2009.

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