Vernon Chalmers Photography: October 2025

07 October 2025

Canon Photography Training Milnerton, Cape Town

Photography Training / Skills Development Milnerton, Cape Town and Cape Peninsula

Personalised Canon EOS / Canon EOS R Training for Different Learner Levels

Fast Shutter Speed / Action Photography Training Woodbridge Island, Cape Town

Vernon Chalmers Photography Approach

Vernon Canon Photography Training Cape Town / Cape Peninsula

"If you’re looking for Canon photography training in Milnerton, Cape Town, Vernon Chalmers Photography offers a variety of cost-effective courses tailored to different skill levels and interests. They provide one-on-one training sessions for Canon EOS DSLR and EOS R mirrorless cameras, covering topics such as:

Introduction to Photography
Bird and Flower Photography
Macro and Close-Up Photography
Landscape and Long Exposure Photography
Canon Speedlite Flash Photography

Training sessions can be held at various locations, including Woodbridge Island and Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, or even in the comfort of your own home or garden. (Microsoft Copilot)

Canon EOS / EOS R Camera and Photography

Cost-Effective Private Canon EOS / EOS R Camera and Photography tutoring / training courses in Milnerton, Cape Town - or in the comfort of your home / garden anywhere in the Cape Peninsula.

Tailor-made (individual) learning programmes are prepared for specific Canon EOS / EOS R camera and photography requirements with the following objectives:

Individual Needs / Gear analysis
Canon EOS camera menus / settings
Exposure settings and options
Specific genre applications and skills development
Practical shooting sessions (where applicable)
DPP / Lightroom Post-processing overview
Ongoing support

Canon Camera / Lens Requirements
Any Canon EOS / EOS R body / lens combination is suitable for most of the training sessions. During initial contact I will determine the learner's current skills, Canon EOS system and other learning / photographic requirements. Many Canon PowerShot camera models are also suitable for creative photography skills development.

Camera and Photgraphy Training Documentation
All Vernon Chalmers Photography Training delegates are issued with a folder with all relevant printed documentation in terms of camera and personal photography requirements. Documents may be added (if required) to every follow-up session (should the delegate decide to have two or more sessions).

Small Butterfly Woodbridge Island - Canon EF 100-400mm Lens

Learning Photography from the comfort of your Own Cape Town Home / Garden More Information

Bird / Flower Photography Training Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden More Information

Photography Private Training Classes Milnerton, Cape Town

Introduction to Photography / Canon Cameras More
Bird / Flower Photography Training Kirstenbosch More
Birds in Flight / Bird Photography Training More
Canon Speedlite Flash Photography Training More
Macro / Close-Up Photography More
Landscape / Long Exposure Photography More

Training / demonstrations are done on the client's own Canon EOS bodies attached to various Canon EF / other brand lenses covering wide-angle to zoom focal lengths.

Canon EOS System / Menu Setup and Training Cape Town

2025 Individual Photography Training Session Cost / Rates

From R850-00 per four hour session for Introductory Canon EOS / EOS R photography in Milnerton, Cape Town. Practical shooting sessions can be worked into the training. A typical training programme of three training sessions is R2 450-00.

From R900-00 per four hour session for developing . more advanced Canon EOS / EOS R photography in Milnerton, Cape Town. Practical shooting sessions can be worked into the training. A typical training programme of three training sessions is R2 600-00.

Three sessions of training to be up to 12 hours+ theory / settings training (inclusive: a three hours practical shoot around Woodbridge Island if required) and an Adobe Lightroom informal assessment / of images taken - irrespective of genre.

Canon EOS Cameras / Lenses / Speedlite Flash Training
All Canon EOS cameras from the EOS 1100D to advanced AF training on the Canon EOS 80D to Canon EOS-1D X Mark III. All Canon EOS R Cameras. All Canon EF / EF-S / RF / RF-S and other Canon-compatible brand lenses. All Canon Speedlite flash units from Canon Speedlite 270EX to Canon Speedlite 600EX II-RT (including Macro Ring Lite flash models).

Intaka Island Photography Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens

Advanced Canon EOS Autofocus Training (Canon EOS / EOS R)
For advanced Autofocus (AF) training have a look at the Birds in Flight Photography workshop options. Advanced AF training is available from the Canon EOS 7D Mark II / Canon EOS 5D Mark III / Canon EOS 5D Mark IV up to the Canon EOS 1-DX Mark II / III. Most Canon EOS R bodies (i.e. EOS R7, EOS R6, EOS R6 Mark II, EOS R5, EOS R5 Mark II, EOS R3, EOS R1) will have similar or more advanced Dual Pixel CMOS AF Systems. Contact me for more information about a specific Canon EOS / EOS R AF System.

Cape Town Photography Training Schedules / Availability
From Tuesdays - during the day / evening and / or over weekends.

Canon EOS / Close-Up Lens Accessories Training Cape Town

Core Canon Camera / Photography Learning Areas

Overview & Specific Canon Camera / Lens Settings
Exposure Settings for M / Av / Tv Modes
Autofocus / Manual Focus Options
General Photography / Lens Selection / Settings
Transition from JPG to RAW (Reasons why)
Landscape Photography / Settings / Filters
Close-Up / Macro Photography / Settings
Speedlite Flash / Flash Modes / Flash Settings
Digital Image Management

Practical Photography / Application

Inter-relationship of ISO / Aperture / Shutter Speed
Aperture and Depth of Field demonstration
Low light / Long Exposure demonstration
Landscape sessions / Manual focusing
Speedlite Flash application / technique
Introduction to Post-Processing

Tailor-made Canon Camera / Photography training to be facilitated on specific requirements after a thorough needs-analysis with individual photographer / or small group.

Typical Learning Areas Agenda
General Photography Challenges / Fundamentals
Exposure Overview (ISO / Aperture / Shutter Speed)
Canon EOS 70D Menus / Settings (in relation to exposure)
Camera / Lens Settings (in relation to application / genres)
Lens Selection / Technique (in relation to application / genres)
Introduction to Canon Flash / Low Light Photography
Still Photography Only

Above Learning Areas are facilitated over two three sessions of four hours+ each. Any additional practical photography sessions (if required) will be at an additional pro-rata cost.

Fireworks Display Photography with Canon EOS 6D : Cape Town

From Woodbridge Island : Canon EOS 6D / 16-35mm Lens

Existential Photo-Creativity : Slow Shutter Speed Abstract Application

Perched Pied Kingfisher : Canon EOS 7D Mark II / 400mm Lens

Long Exposure Photography: Canon EOS 700D / Wide-Angle Lens

Birds in Flight (Swift Tern) : Canon EOS 7D Mark II / 400mm lens

Persian Cat Portrait : Canon EOS 6D / 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM Lens

Fashion Photography Canon Speedlite flash : Canon EOS 6D @ 70mm

Long Exposure Photography Canon EOS 6D : Milnerton

Close-Up & Macro Photography Cape Town : Canon EOS 6D

Panning / Slow Shutter Speed: Canon EOS 70D EF 70-300mm Lens

Long Exposure Photography Cape Town Canon EOS 6D @ f/16

Canon Photography Training Session at Spier Wine Farm

Canon Photography Training Courses Milnerton Woodbridge Island | Kirstenbosch Garden

The Returning Flights of a Peregrine Falcon

An Essence of a Fleeting Purpose not Clearly Understood, well Perceived, but nevertheless, gave me a Feeling of Nature's Quiet Absurdity that may happen at times.

Peregrine falcon flying directly towards camera above

Peregrine Falcon Flying Directly Towards Apartment Window in Arnhem, Milnerton

Many of you may remember this image of the peregrine falcon flying towards me - standing in my bedroom with camera in hand.

Of course the 'event' did not start off like this, there is a bit more to the story - so I thought of adding some existential context of that strange, but special Thursday afternoon.

The perception of viewing an image of a bird directly, through our lenses or our screens as a photograph as a lived experience is deeply rooted in the values of ornithology, natural science and / or emotional nuance. This is of course perceived differently by anyone viewing the same phenomenon. One can also argue there are other perceived values, such as aesthetics, existential principles and / or subjective quality or pleasure - or perhaps the opposite.

An Act of Phenomenology - The Peregrine and the Window

For a few years now the peregrine falcon has visited my apartment high above Milnerton on regular occasions - sleeping outside the bathroom window, sometimes perched on the lounge windowsill watching me work or posing for a few images outside my front door.

Then, one Thursday afternoon, something extraordinary happened.

He flew towards my bedroom window without warning, but with intent - not once, but more than twenty times - banking sharply to the right at the last moment to avoid the large window and the wall. My 12th floor apartment is on the south-eastern corner of Arnhem, opposite Woodbridge Island (Milnerton) and from that vantage, I watched him with concerned awareness. Each flight felt deliberate, with dark eyes piercing into the human soul, over and over, deeper and deeper. Of course, he never misjudged the angle.

I photographed him at 10fps - eventually more than a thousand frames. But this image was the closest in presence with the most detail and definition (considering the poor light). It’s was not in any way a study in motion or precision. It was rather one of the special moments of human consciousness and instinct to perceive / capture many fleeting moments of a routine impermanence - for 'holding on' to just one.

An essence of a fleeting purpose not clearly understood, well perceived, but nevertheless, gave me a glimpse of nature's quiet absurdity that may happen at times. I left before he did...

It was indeed a rhythm of freedom and presence that defies ownership. It does not belong to me, yet it chooses to return again and again.

With Canon EOS 7D Mark II / EF 400mm f/5.6L USM Lens

06 October 2025

New Canon EOS R6 Mark III Announcement Updates

Latest Canon EOS R6 Mark III Rumors and Release Date Information

For Illustration Purpose Only : The Rumored Canon EOS R6 Mark III

Possible Canon EOS R6 Mark III Mirrorless Rumor Update / Announcement Date

Latest Updates: Canon EOS R6 Mark III Rumors / Update Links from Online Sources

Canon EOS R6 Mark III - Latest Announcement Insights

"The Canon EOS R6 Mark III is shaping up to be one of the most anticipated full-frame mirrorless releases in Canon’s line-up, but its journey to announcement has been anything but straightforward.

Here's the latest:

Announcement Timeline

Originally expected: Late May 2025
Current status: November 2025
Rumored release window: Possibly late 2025 or early 2026

Reasons for Delay

Geopolitical and economic factors: Speculation suggests Canon may be navigating global trade uncertainties, including potential U.S. tariffs on electronics
Strategic timing: Canon may be prioritizing flagship models like the EOS R1, and adjusting its roadmap accordingly

Expected Features

Sensor upgrade: Likely a newly developed 24MP–30MP full-frame sensor for improved detail and low-light performance
Video enhancements: Internal 6K or even 8K recording, better heat management, and advanced codecs for pro workflows
AI autofocus: Further improvements in subject tracking and recognition
Design tweaks: Ergonomic refinements and possibly a higher-resolution EVF

Industry Buzz

Despite the delay, the R6 Mark III is still expected to be a major launch. Its predecessor, the R6 Mark II, remains Canon’s most popular full-frame mirrorless body, making this upgrade highly anticipated.

If you're considering how this might align with your training modules or symbolic visual series, Vernon, we could explore a speculative visual concept - perhaps a “Lens of Anticipation” motif that captures the tension between readiness and delay. Let me know if you'd like to sketch that out." (Microsoft Copilot)

Latest Updates: Canon EOS R6 Mark III Rumors / Update Links from Online Sources

Canon R6 Mark III Announcement in November 2025

Canon R6 Mark III Announcement in November 2025

The Canon EOS R6 Mark III is Canon’s Next Full-Frame Release
The Canon EOS R6 Mark III is Canon’s Next Full-Frame Release

R6 Mark III Rumors – Announcement Very Soon?
R6 Mark III Rumors – Announcement Very Soon?

Canon EOS R7 Mark II & EOS R6 Mark III Announcement Delays?

Canon EOS R7 Mark II & EOS R6 Mark III Announcement Delays?

Canon EOS R6 Mark III Resolution Increase?

Canon EOS R6 Mark III Resolution Increase?

Canon EOS R6 Mark III won’t be announced ahead of CP+

Canon EOS R6 Mark III won’t be announced ahead of CP+

Canon R6 Mark III Spotted, is an Announcement on the Way?
Canon R6 Mark III Spotted, is an Announcement on the Way?

Canon EOS R6 Mark III prototypes are in the wild

04 October 2025

Modern Colour Photography and Existential Being

Post-2020 Visual Existentialism: Technology, Isolation, and the Digital Self.

Abstract

"This essay explores the relationship between modern colour photography and existential being, situating colour as both an aesthetic and ontological phenomenon that mediates how humans experience the world. Through a phenomenological and existential lens, it examines how colour operates not only as visual information but as an emotional and philosophical language through which being discloses itself. Drawing on thinkers such as Sartre, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Barthes, the discussion extends to the photographic practices of Vernon Chalmers, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rinko Kawauchi, and Nan Goldin, whose works articulate different modes of colour’s existential significance. The essay further integrates the post-2020 context - marked by pandemic isolation, environmental precarity, and digital mediation - to trace how the meaning of colour and being in photography has evolved. The concluding reflection speculates on the future of colour perception and existential authenticity in the age of artificial intelligence and image automation.

Keywords: colour photography, existentialism, phenomenology, digital being, post-2020, visual culture, Chalmers, Tillmans, Kawauchi, Goldin

Introduction: Colour, Consciousness, and the Modern Image

Modern colour photography has become an arena in which being is revealed through light, hue, and atmosphere. In the twenty-first century, colour functions not merely as aesthetic pleasure but as an existential language - an interface between perception and meaning (Barthes, 1981). The post-2020 era has amplified this relationship. Isolation, digital saturation, and environmental anxiety have transformed how individuals perceive the world, with colour becoming an affective register of consciousness itself.

Existentialism situates the human being as a project of becoming - rooted in freedom, choice, and awareness of finitude (Sartre, 1943/1992). Within the photographic act, colour thus participates in the drama of existence: to photograph in colour is to assert presence, to recognise temporality, and to encounter the world as a field of possibilities. Photographers such as Vernon Chalmers, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rinko Kawauchi, and Nan Goldin work within this horizon, using colour to articulate states of awareness and authenticity. Their works are less about representation than revelation - about how colour discloses being.

Embodied Seeing: Phenomenology and Existential Being

Phenomenology, especially as developed by Merleau-Ponty (1945/2012), posits that perception is embodied; we see the world not as detached observers but as participants within it. The photographer’s eye is an extension of lived consciousness, and colour is the vibratory medium through which this participation becomes visible. Heidegger’s (1927/1962) notion of being-in-the-world similarly positions vision as a mode of dwelling, suggesting that photography, particularly in colour, enacts a dialogue between self and world.

Colour has historically been treated as secondary to form - an embellishment rather than an essence. Yet in existential terms, colour constitutes the mood of being. It modulates experience and carries ontological weight. The blues of twilight or the ochres of dusk are not merely wavelengths but existential tones that mirror human temporality. In photography, these tones can transform ordinary perception into disclosure: the world shows itself as lived and finite.

Sartre’s theory of consciousness as intentional - always directed toward something - finds visual resonance in photography’s framing act. The choice of a particular chromatic balance, saturation, or warmth expresses a mode of being-toward-the-world. In the works of Chalmers, Kawauchi, Tillmans, and Goldin, colour becomes the grammar through which intention, emotion, and temporality converge.

Chromatic Narratives: The Emotional and Ontological Weight of Colour

Colour photography, particularly since the late twentieth century, has evolved from technical novelty to existential practice. The shift from monochrome modernism to colour realism signalled not merely aesthetic liberation but an ontological one: a return of lived experience to representation (Shore, 2010). Colour’s immediacy invites empathy; it collapses the distance between subject and spectator.

In phenomenological terms, colour is affect made visible. The warmth of morning light conveys serenity; the cyan of an overexposed sea may suggest melancholy. These associations are culturally conditioned yet experientially grounded. Kawauchi’s tender pastel hues evoke the sacred within the mundane, while Goldin’s saturated reds and yellows immerse the viewer in emotional intensity. Tillmans employs colour’s ambiguity - its capacity to oscillate between abstraction and presence - to mirror the fragility of contemporary existence.

Chalmers, meanwhile, situates colour as a mode of being-with-nature. His contemplative photographs of birds and coastal light, often composed within the subtle palette of the Cape shoreline, articulate what Heidegger might call dwelling - an attunement to the world’s presencing. In each artist, colour becomes the existential bridge between perception and meaning.

Four Voices in Modern Colour Photography
Vernon Chalmers: Presence and the Lived Colour of the Moment

Chalmers’ photography, emerging from the landscapes and wildlife of South Africa’s Western Cape, embodies a meditative engagement with presence. His practice reflects an existential attentiveness to the immediate - the heron lifting through mist, the blue shimmer of early morning water. Chalmers’ colours are rarely exaggerated; they exist within the subtle register of natural light, situating being as continuity between observer and environment (Chalmers, 2025).

From a phenomenological view, Chalmers’ work enacts what Merleau-Ponty termed the flesh of the world - the intertwining of self and nature through perception. Each photograph becomes a testimony to what is fleeting yet infinite. In this way, Chalmers’ colour is not decorative but ontological: it affirms existence through attention. Vernon Chalmers Website

Wolfgang Tillmans: Fragility, Light, and Modern Contingency

Wolfgang Tillmans operates at the intersection of abstraction and documentary, exploring how colour articulates the precarity of modern being. His abstract series - Freischwimmer (2003–2009) and Silver (2008) - transform chemical reactions and digital distortions into luminous meditations on impermanence. For Tillmans, light and colour are unstable yet revealing; they visualise the tension between order and entropy (Tillmans, 2017).
In existential terms, Tillmans’ work captures what Sartre (1943/1992) described as nausea - the confrontation with contingency. Yet his chromatic openness also evokes transcendence: light as the promise of renewal. His portraits and still-lifes, often infused with ambient hues, humanise the contemporary moment, showing that even within flux, being persists. Wolfgang Tillmans Website

Rinko Kawauchi: Ephemeral Wonder and the Everyday Sublime

Rinko Kawauchi’s colour palette is one of translucence - soft blues, pale pinks, and milky whites. Her photographs invite contemplation of the everyday as a site of transcendence. In Illuminance (2011), moments such as sunlight filtering through curtains or a droplet catching light become epiphanies of being. Kawauchi’s use of colour expresses an existential tenderness, aligning with the Japanese aesthetic of mono no aware, the pathos of impermanence.
Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of perception illuminates Kawauchi’s vision: her camera perceives not objects but atmospheres. The colour field in her work dissolves subject-object duality; it is being-in-the-moment made visible. Through this, she renders the ordinary as sacre - an ethics of seeing grounded in wonder (Kawauchi, 2011). Rinko Kawauchi Website

Nan Goldin: Memory, Intimacy, and the Colour of Survival

Nan Goldin’s colour is visceral. In The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (1986), the deep reds, yellows, and shadows evoke the emotional intensity of intimacy, addiction, and loss. Goldin’s photographs confront being through vulnerability. Colour here operates as confession - embodied memory inscribed in light.
Barthes’ (1981) notion of the punctum - the detail that wounds - finds its chromatic expression in Goldin’s saturated tones. Each frame bleeds emotion; colour becomes the trace of survival. Her work also prefigures the post-2020 condition: the entanglement of identity, trauma, and visual documentation in a mediated world. Nan Golding Website

Post-2020 Visual Existentialism: Technology, Isolation, and the Digital Self

The post-2020 period introduced new dimensions of existential colour. Pandemic isolation, environmental anxiety, and technological immersion altered how individuals perceived reality. The screen became both mirror and membrane - an interface through which being encountered itself.

During global lockdowns, photography became an act of affirmation. Colour mediated the confinement of space: the glow of a laptop light, the artificial warmth of digital filters, or the deep saturation of virtual sunsets shared on social media. These images were not escapist but ontological; they testified to a collective attempt to sustain presence in absence (Sontag, 2020).

For photographers like Chalmers and Tillmans, the period deepened attention to fragility and presence. Chalmers’ localised practice - working within limited physical radii - re-anchored being in proximity and repetition. Tillmans’ COVID-era projects, exploring empty spaces and suspended light, expressed a shared vulnerability.

The digital turn also invited philosophical questioning. Heidegger warned that technology risks enframing the world as resource (Gestell), reducing being to function (Heidegger, 1954/1977). Yet post-2020 digital colour also enabled renewal: virtual exhibitions, smartphone photography, and online collectivity expanded the horizon of visibility. Kawauchi’s luminous minimalism found resonance in digital calmness, while Goldin’s activism against exploitation in the opioid and art industries (Memory Lost, 2019–2021) transformed colour into protest - existence as ethical presence.

Thus, post-2020 colour photography reveals a paradox: technology distances and discloses simultaneously. Within its glow, being seeks authenticity amid simulation.

Conclusion: The Future of Colour and Being in AI-Mediated Visual Culture

As artificial intelligence begins to generate and curate images autonomously, the relationship between colour and existential being enters a new epoch. AI models reproduce hue, contrast, and atmosphere with mathematical precision, yet they lack what Sartre called intentional consciousness - the directedness that gives meaning to perception. The human photographer’s act remains an existential declaration: I see, therefore I am engaged with being.

However, AI’s capacity to simulate perception challenges this authenticity. The question emerges: can colour still bear ontological truth when detached from embodied seeing? Perhaps the answer lies not in opposition but dialogue. AI-assisted creation may invite photographers to reconsider what authenticity means - to return to presence as affect, not algorithm.

Environmental awareness and post-human perspectives also redefine the chromatic field. As climate change alters light quality, atmosphere, and ecological tone, colour becomes an index of planetary being. Photographers increasingly respond to these transformations, using hue to express mourning and renewal. The future of colour photography may thus merge existential aesthetics with ecological consciousness - a new ethos of light that acknowledges both fragility and connection.

In this evolving landscape, Chalmers’ contemplative realism, Tillmans’ experimentalism, Kawauchi’s quiet transcendence, and Goldin’s emotional candour converge as four responses to the same question: how can colour still make us feel real? The answer, perhaps, is that colour endures as the last analogue of being - an embodied resonance in an increasingly artificial world." (Source: ChatGPT 2025)

References

Barthes, R. (1981). Camera lucida: Reflections on photography (R. Howard, Trans.). Hill and Wang.

Chalmers, V. (2025). Vernon Chalmers Existential Photographic Practice, accessed October 04, 2025, Vernon Chalmers Photography.

Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927)
Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology (W. Lovitt, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1954)

Kawauchi, R. (2011). Illuminance. Aperture.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (2012). Phenomenology of perception (D. A. Landes, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1945)

Sartre, J.-P. (1992). Being and nothingness (H. E. Barnes, Trans.). Washington Square Press. (Original work published 1943)

Shore, S. (2010). The nature of photographs: A primer. Phaidon.

Sontag, S. (2020). On photography. Penguin Modern Classics. (Original work published 1977)

Tillmans, W. (2017). What’s wrong with redistribution? David Zwirner Books.

Image: Created by ChatGPT

Peregrine Falcon High-Up From Arnhem, Milnerton

A long-range shot of my neighbour, just before dusk. He knows I’m watching. Well, he’s calling and reminding me of 'his majesty’s' presence – and that is always a privilege – here or there.

Peregrine Falcon High-Up in Milnerton, Cape Town

Peregrine Falcon from high-Up in Arnhem, Milnerton

I heard the familiar Peregrine Falcon screech just before dawn this evening, and I looked out the window - and there he was, perched across from Arnhem, Milnerton on another building, more / less the same height when he is here outside Arnhem.

Almost too far for my 400mm lens to get a decent image of the Peregrine Falcon, but, nevertheless, I tried and it exposed beter than expected. He was, oh, so aware that I was watching as it was directly across from my bedroom window.

Location: From Arnhem, Milnerton,

A previous image in a posing perch - just outside my front door.

Peregrine Falcon Outside My Front Door - Arnhem, Milnerton

This is a part of a sequence of Peregrine Falcon images I will upload at a later stage.

Location: At Arnhem Milnerton

Both images with Canon EOS 7D Mark II and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM Prime Lens

The Peregrine Falcon as Fastest Bird Speed Report

02 October 2025

Birding with the Canon 7D Mark II, Woodbridge Island

Birding around Woodbridge Island with the Canon 7D Mark II / EF 400mm f/5.6L USM Lens

Yellow-Billed Duck in Flight Table Bay Nature Reserve Woodbridge Island Copyright Vernon Chalmers Photography

Yellow-Billed Duck in Flight : Table Bay Nature Reserve, Woodbridge Island

"As far as knowing when to shoot, I always relied totally on my instinct. I believed I could feel when there was a good picture." - Linda McCartney

Shooting at 400mm with the APS-C Canon body
On Monday I made reference of the fact that I am going to experiment with the Canon Extender EF 1.4x III paired with the Canon EOS 7D Mark II and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens one last time. (Birds on a Blue Monday Morning) Keep in mind that an APS-C body adds a crop factor of 1.6x to the focal length of the lens (with / without the 1.4x extender).

It was indeed the last time. This morning I went out with the same body and lens pairing, but minus the Canon Extender EF 1.4x III. The shorter focal length (400mm vs. 560mm) at f/5.6 and not f/8 - and the fact that I could use the Large Zone AF Mode convinced me to leave the extender alone until another day for testing on a different f/2.8 or f/4 pairing.

During my normal hike, down the Diep River, Woodbridge Island right up to the edge of the Table Bay Nature Reserve I experienced intermittent lower light (due to scattered cloud cover) than Monday with a tad stronger South-Easterly wind. I took more / less the same shots as I did on Monday, but where far more satisfied with the speed of the AF and the overall quality of the bird images.

Birds in Flight / Perched Bird List

Yellow-Billed Duck in Flight (Top)
African Oystercatcher in Flight
Egyptian Goose in Flight
Grey Heron in Flight
Purple Heron in Flight
African Sacred Ibis in Flight
Pigeons in Flight
Common Starling in Flight
Female Red Bishop Perched

African Oystercatcher in Flight : Table Bay Nature Reserve Woodbridge Island

Egyptian Goose in Flight : Diep River Woodbridge Island

Grey Heron in Flight : Table Bay Nature Reserve Woodbridge Island

Purple Heron in Flight Table Bay Nature Reserve Woodbridge Island

African Sacred Ibis : High Above Woodbridge Island

Pigeons in Flight : Diep River Woodbridge Island

Common Starling in Flight : Diep River Woodbridge Island

Perched Female Red Bishop : Diep River Woodbridge Island

Location: Diep River, Woodbridge Island, Table Bay Nature Reserve

Canon Camera / Lens for Bird Photography

Canon EOS 7D Mark II (APS-C)
Canon EF 400mm f/5.6L USM Lens
SanDisk Extreme PRO 64GB 200 MB/s

Exposure / Focus Settings for Bird Photography

Autofocus On
Manual Mode
Aperture f/5.6
Auto ISO 160 - 500
Shutter Speeds 1/2500s
No Image Stabilisation
Handheld

Image Post-Processing: Lightroom Classic (Ver 14.5)

Minor Adjustments (Crop / Exposure / Contrast)
Noise and Spot Removal
RAW to JPEG Conversion

All Images Copyright: Vernon Chalmers Photography

Vernon Chalmers Existential Photographic Practice

Colour, Presence, and the Photographic Frame: Vernon Chalmers as a colour existential photographer articulate conceptual contours that interweaves technical mastery, chromatic sensitivity, and philosophical openness.

African Oystercatcher in Flight : Table Bay Nature Reserve Woodbridge Island

‘Patience is the quiet companion of the existential wait...’

Abstract

"This paper proposes a conceptual framework for reading the photographic work of Vernon Chalmers as a practice of “colour existential photography.” Drawing on scholarship in contemporary photographic theory, existential aesthetics and phenomenology it can be argued that Chalmers’s images - especially in his series of birds and floral subjects - are structured to enact a slow, ethical attention to presence, fragility, and relational being. His use of colour is not ancillary but central as a vehicle of mood, temporality, and ontological disclosure. Further, his pedagogical orientation and rootedness in South African ecologies situate him as a node in a localized, ecologically engaged practice of existential seeing. The paper proceeds by establishing the theoretical terms, situating Chalmers in conversation with documentary and fine-art practices, analysing core strategies in his work, and concluding by reflecting on the potentials and limits of this photographic approach.

Introduction

Vernon Chalmers is a South African photographic practitioner whose recent work pivots on close-up studies of birds, flowers, and natural habitats, always mediated through a rigorous chromatic sensibility. While his public profile is strongest among regional photography and birding communities, his body of imagery invites sustained philosophical reading. In this paper it can be affirmed that Chalmers can be situated as a “colour existential” photographer - one who treats colour, light, and compositional restraint not merely as aesthetic choices but as existential devices, such that the photograph becomes a site for revealing the fragile presence of nonhuman others and the conditions of seeing itself.

To develop this argument, the theoretical terrain of existential aesthetics and photographic theory (Section I) is mapped. Then Chalmers is situated in relation to documentary and fine-art strains in nature photography (Section II). Next, key formal and thematic strategies in his work are analysed (Section III). Finally, an assessment of both the potentials and constraints of reading Chalmers as an existential photographer (Section IV) are stated and conclude with reflections on how this perspective might inform future work and reception.

I. Theoretical Framework

Existential Aesthetics and the Photographic Gesture

Existential aesthetics is an emergent philosophical subfield that asks how aesthetic practices or experiences might carry existential weight - that is, how they contribute to the way human beings (or nonhumans, in extension) confront condition, finitude, and meaning (Maes, 2022). Art, under this view, is not simply ornament or escape, but may act as a mode of disclosure: an opening toward how beings show up in the world. (ResearchGate)

The existential thinkers of the 20th century - Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Gabriel Marcel, Simone de Beauvoir - often treated art as one of the prime sites in which human freedom, contingency, and meaning interplay (Deranty, 2009). (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy) For example, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology emphasizes that perception is never neutral: it is embodied, contingent, and always amidst the world. Colour, in this view, is not a secondary attribute but part of how things appear as felt, situated phenomena.

When translated to the photographic medium, such an existential posture demands that the photograph do more than illustrate or classify. It must preserve a residue of presence, hesitation, and relational openness - a tension rather than closure. Some scholars have argued that photographs may carry a “punctum” (in Barthes’ sense) or a wounding detail that breaks the cool distance of image (Barthes, 1981). (Wikipedia) In existential aesthetics, the goal is somewhat different: not shock or sting, but a calibrated opening - an invitation to dwell in the frame and to sense the finitude of that dwelling.

Contemporary Photography Theory: Representation, Attention, and Ethics

Photography theory in the late 20th and 21st centuries has largely focused on questions of representation, indexicality, media ecology, and the politics of looking. In Contemporary Photography and Theory: Concepts and Debates, Sally Miller surveys debates around identity, landscape and place, the politics of representation, psychoanalysis, and photographic events, arguing that photographers must negotiate tensions between representation and presence, mediation and immediacy. (Google Play)

Another fruitful strand is the intersection of social theory and photographic aesthetics: how images mediate power, gaze, subjectivity, and responsibility (Ray, 2020). (SAGE Journals) Photographs are never neutral - they are implicated in systems of seeing, exclusion, and invisibility. Hence any existential photographic practice must remain attentive to the ethical dimension of what is shown, how it is shown, and what is omitted.

Combining the existential and photographic registers suggests a program in which the photograph is understood not merely as representation or communication, but as a site of witnessing and relational exposure. In such a framework, colour, light, and compositional restraint become tools for cultivating attention, humility, and openness to otherness.

Vernon Chalmers Existential Photographic Practice

Female Red Bishop : Diep River, Woodbridge Island

II. Positioning Vernon Chalmers: Nature Photography, Documentary, and Fine Art

The Dual Heritage of Natural-History and Poetic Photography

Chalmers works in the domain of what is sometimes called natural-history photography (birding, botanical studies), but his output also aspires toward poetic and contemplative traditions. In natural-history or wildlife photography, precision, documentation, and clarity are often primary. The photographer must render species accurately, capture behaviour, and produce images that may carry scientific or conservation value. Yet in the fine-art tradition, nature is often a field for aesthetic reflection, formal play, or existential rumination.

Chalmers treads a line between these inheritances. He does not avoid taxonomic specificity - his bird images are often legible to field observers. But he also resists the spectacle-driven tropes of wildlife photography (e.g., dramatic flight freezes, predatory attacks). Instead, he cultivates an image-world of quiet presence and chromatic depth, thus participating in a tradition of “quiet nature” photography: images that favour mood, light, and subtle gesture over action.

This lineage evokes affinities with photographers such as Hiroshi Sugimoto in his seascapes (where minimalism and temporality merge) or Wolf Kahn (in his painterly landscapes), but more directly with colour photographers who place mood and presence at the centre. While there is no exact predecessor for Chalmers’s bird-and-flower focus, his sensibility resonates with photographers who use nature as a mirror for contemplation - images that “listen” as much as they “see.”

Local Ecologies and the South African Context

One virtue of situating Chalmers locally is that his work is rooted in the ecologies and light of Cape Town, coastal wetlands, fynbos fringes, riverine systems, and migratory bird routes. This geographic rootedness counters the cosmopolitan flattening that sometimes afflicts nature photography, wherein generic wildernesses are reproduced. Instead, Chalmers’s frames feel tied to place - the particular light, tonal temperature, atmospheric haze, and bird species of the Cape region.

Because of this, his work may help contribute to a photographic ecology in South Africa that resists exoticization. It anchors existential attention not in generic remote wilderness but in familiar habitats - allowing local viewers to re-see what may otherwise be taken for granted. In doing so, Chalmers’s project participates in decolonial photographic possibilities: it is not the romantic outsider gazing upon exotic nature, but a sensitive inhabitant attending to worlds already near.

Wildflower Kirstenbosch Garden, Cape Town

III. Formal and Thematic Strategies in Chalmers’s Work

In this section key compositional and thematic strategies in Chalmers’s oeuvre and existential focusing are analized: (1) the role of colour and tone, (2) compositional restraint and negative space, (3) temporality, atmosphere, and movement, and (4) the ethics of absence and omission.

Colour and Tone as Existential Medium

A central claim is that Chalmers treats colour not as decorative but as existential medium: hue, saturation, and tonal modulation are enlisted to articulate presence, mood, and subtle narrative. In his writings, Chalmers sometimes explicitly frames colour as “the paradigm of being” (see his public statements). (Facebook)

In his bird work, the subtle iridescences of plumage, the quivering greens of wetland foliage, and the dusky blues or greys of light often form harmonic zones in which the bird emerges rather than intrudes. The bird is not pasted onto a background, but dissolves and re-coheres through colour relationships. For example, the emerald tones of reed stems may echo or contrast the downy tones of wing feathers; a cooler light may mute edges, allowing the subject to seem softly emergent.

In floral studies, Chalmers often frames a single bloom or group of petals against a softly graduated tonal field. Because the photographic plane is shallow in depth, the transitions of colour act as atmospheric layers. The viewer is drawn into a chromatic space that feels immersive yet precise. The use of near-monochrome passages or limited palettes (e.g., subtle greys, soft pink-beiges) allows accent colours to carry weight without becoming visually outré.

This approach to colour aligns with a phenomenological view: colour appears not as mere attribute but as part of how the world shows itself. Merleau-Ponty’s insight that perception is always embodied, ambient, and relational means that colour is inseparable from the conditions of seeing (Deranty, 2009). (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy)

Compositional Restraint, Negative Space, and the Poetics of Silence

Another hallmark of Chalmers’s work is compositional restraint. His frames often spare the visual field of clutter, giving the subject breathing space. Negative space is not emptiness but a zone of encounter: a quiet tension within which the subject asserts itself.

Subjects (birds, petals, stems) are often offset rather than centered, creating asymmetries that evoke movement or expectation. Lines—branches, stalks, reed stalks—act as visual scaffolding, guiding the eye gently without dominating subjecthood. Shadows and subtle gradations of background tone frame the subject rather than competing with it.

This restraint is not minimalism for its own sake but an ethical decision: by leaving “space,” the photographer allows the subject room to “be,” rather than subsuming it entirely. In that sense, the negative zones function as a visual ethic of humility, resisting overdetermination.

Temporality, Atmosphere, and Movement

Though many of Chalmers’s images read as quiet stills, temporality and movement are always implied. A heron poised mid-step or a kingfisher about to launch evoke the interval before action; petals unfolding or drooping gestate change. Even in the most static images, there is a latent tension between duration and pause.

Atmospheric conditions—mist, haze, diffuse early-morning or late-afternoon light—play a vital role. Chalmers often photographs in times when light is soft rather than harsh, making transitions between subject and background subtle. Such conditions allow the subject to be integrated in an ambient field of tone, dissolving the rigid subject/object divide.

His technical mastery (fast lenses, shallow depth of field, careful exposure) is not simply virtuoso display but instrumental: it allows the subject to emerge gently from ambient space rather than be pasted against it.

Early Morning Wildflower : Kirstenbosch Garden, Cape Town

'existence unfolding in fragile colour'

The Ethics of Absence and Omission

Finally, a critical dimension of Chalmers’s work is what he does not show. He rarely includes overt human presence, signage, cages, or intrusive structures. The human is mostly absent, except implicitly in the camera’s gaze. This absence is a double-edged choice: on one hand, it focuses attention on nonhuman presence. On the other, it may risk erasing the human ecological context (e.g., habitat destruction, climate change pressures).

However, I argue that this absence is not naive; rather, it is strategic: by withholding explicit human presence, Chalmers allows the photographed nonhumans to appear on their own terms. The viewer is invited into a relation, not a spectacle. But this strategy also places responsibility on the viewer to recall the human entanglements underlying the scenes.

Common Starling in Flight in Flight : Table Bay Nature Reserve Woodbridge Island

IV. Critical Reflections: Potentials, Challenges, and Future Directions

Potentials: Attention, Empathy, and Ecological Imaginaries

Reading Chalmers as an existential photographer opens up several possibilities. First, it foregrounds the training of attention: his images act as pedagogical devices, encouraging slow looking and care. In a photographic world dominated by speed and spectacle, this is a modest but meaningful resistance.
Second, such imagery cultivates empathetic openness. By resisting spectacle and foregrounding fragility and presence, Chalmers’s work enables viewers to feel the finitude of nonhuman beings rather than consign them to mere “subjects.”
Third, anchored in local ecologies, his practice contributes to more grounded ecological imaginaries: nature is not alien wilderness but habitat, neighbor, and site of relational intimacy. This orientation counters extractive visual paradigms that treat nature as exotic resource.

Challenges and Tensions

However, the approach also faces challenges. One critique is that aesthetic restraint may neutralize urgency. In contexts of biodiversity decline and climate crisis, poetic images risk being aesthetic safe zones that do not provoke action. The question is: can existential seeing drive engagement or does it lull the viewer into reverent passivity?
Another tension lies in anthropocentrism. Even as Chalmers seeks a relational posture, the camera remains human-instrument. The act of selecting, framing, and excluding is interpretive. The risk is that the subject is subtly folded into human aesthetic norms. The existential posture must remain self-critical, attuned to its own mediation.
There is also the challenge of reach and accessibility. Existential photographic practice tends toward quiet, refined registers that may be marginalized in popular or commercial spheres. For Chalmers’s work to have broader impact - curatorial, educational, institutional - he and allies must navigate how to present image sequences, interpretive texts, and exhibition contexts in ways that retain the integrity of slow seeing without collapsing into spectacle.

Future Directions and Research Possibilities

A promising direction is close-reading of particular image sequences or diptychs in Chalmers’s portfolio, linking them to migratory cycles, habitat change, or phenological shifts. Another is a comparative project situating Chalmers alongside other existential or contemplative nature photographers (e.g., from Japan, Scandinavia, or South America).
Empirical audience research could test how viewers respond to Chalmers’s images: does sustained exposure lead to deeper attention, changed habits, or environmental sensitivity? Further, curatorial experiments—immersive installations, timed releases, meditative viewing rooms - could adapt the existential posture to exhibition form.

Grey Heron in Flight Table Bay Nature Reserve Woodbridge Island Copyright

Conclusion

In reading Vernon Chalmers as a colour existential photographer, this paper has sought to articulate conceptual contours for a practice that interweaves technical mastery, chromatic sensitivity, and philosophical openness. Chalmers’s photographs do not merely depict birds or flowers; they invite a relational stance toward other beings, an ethics of attention, and a meditation on presence within finitude.

His rootedness in South African ecologies positions him as more than a global aesthetic voice: he contributes to place-based photographic imaginaries that resist exoticization. Yet his approach must remain vigilant to the tensions of anthropocentrism, ethical responsibility, and ecological urgency.

As photography continues to evolve in the age of social media, AI, and accelerated image circulation, practices like Chalmers’s remind us that some of the most radical acts are not in spectacle but in silence, not in speed but in slow seeing. If we can learn to dwell in a frame, to listen through colour and light, then the photograph becomes not just a trace but a small site of openness - to others, to fragility, and to the ongoing work of being in the world." (Source: ChatGPT 2025)

Modern Colour Photography and Existential Being

References

Barthes, R. (1981). Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (R. Howard, Trans.). Hill and Wang. (Wikipedia)

Deranty, J.-P. (2009). Existentialist Aesthetics (in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Retrieved from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Maes, H. (2022). Existential aesthetics. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 80(3), 265–275. (ResearchGate)

Miller, S. (2020). Contemporary Photography and Theory: Concepts and Debates. Routledge. (Google Play)

Ray, L. (2020). Social theory, photography and the visual aesthetic. Journal of Visual Culture. (SAGE Journals)

All Images: Copyright Vernon Chalmers Photography