Call of the wild

TEN years ago Israeli-born Ofer Levy, who had settled in Australia only two years earlier, decided to turn his love for photography into his profession.

That decision has paid off with a busy photography business, a string of awards for his wildlife photography and his first solo exhibition, Free as a Bird, which opened at the Australian Museum in Sydney earlier this month.

“I made a life-changing decision and now I enjoy each and every day,” says 52-year-old Levy excitedly. “You can’t excel in anything unless you devote everything to it and put your heart and soul into it.”

Levy’s love of wildlife began when he was three years old growing up in Haifa in northern Israel.

“There was a large field near where we lived with many flowers and birds, and every day after school I would walk in the field,” he recalls.

“It was a magical place for me and that’s where I got my love for nature. All my childhood memories are of nature; I was fascinated with the colours and richness of the natural world.”

When Levy was 16 he bought his first SLR camera – a second-hand Olympus OM-1 with a 300 mm lens.

“This was when I started my journey into photography,” he says.

He studied biology at Tel Aviv University and became a science teacher, teaching in primary schools and high schools in Israel.

However, when he came to Australia he decided to follow his passion for wildlife photography and become a full-time photographer. A few years later he expanded his photography and today he is well known in the community as a photographer at weddings, bar mitzvahs and events.

He also conducts classes and workshops with his wildlife photography.

“It took me half my life to realise that I am a photographer – when you understand who you are, it is a very exciting realisation,” he explains.

“I hope my photography will help educate people about the importance of nature and conservation.”

Levy travels extensively around Australia for his wildlife photography, including Broome in the Kimberleys and the Cape York Peninsula in the northern tip of Australia.

He has won many awards over the years – his photo of a flying fox ­drinking water made him a finalist in the 2014 BBC/Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, and he was the winner of the 2011 ANZANG Nature photo competition for the Asia-Pacific region.

The Free as a Bird exhibition features 16 large photographs of birds in the wild, including kestrels, bowerbirds, pelicans and black swans.

It’s Levy’s first exhibition devoted exclusively to his photos, but he has been part of touring group exhibitions in Australia, Israel and America.

“Bird photography is so challenging,” he says. “You can’t just snap away to get good pictures. You really need to plan your photo and try many times before something works.

“Being out with nature means an early start – I’m usually on location before sunrise, but it’s beautiful to be in the wetlands or in the bush at that time.”

Levy photographed pelicans on a small sandy island near Woy Woy on the NSW Central Coast.

“About 50 pairs of pelicans were nesting on the island,” he says. “I knew from my research that when pelicans nest they have beautiful, intense colours, especially around their beaks. I use a long lens (800mm) so I didn’t have to get too close to them and didn’t interfere with their natural behaviour.

“I used my kayak to paddle into the right position and took my photos from the water. It was scary to think what would happen if I tipped over and $20,000 of camera equipment would be submerged and gone forever.”

To capture the image of the flying fox drinking water that made Levy a finalist in the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, he stood in water that was chest-deep in the Parramatta River with his camera on an tripod for three hours a day for a week in temperatures over 40 degrees.

Levy says that it can take weeks or months of hard work to get one photo that he’s really happy with.

“I have been doing wildlife photography extensively for the past 10 years and in that time there’s only about 170 photographs that I’m really happy with, even though I would have taken about a million photos in that time.”

The Free as a Bird exhibition is at the Australian Museum, 6 College Street, Sydney until February 2015. Enquiries: www.australianmuseum.net.au and www.oferlevyphotography.com.

REPORT by Danny Gocs

PHOTO of pelicans on the NSW Central Coast taken by Ofer Levy.