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 Learning 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)
• Post-processing overview
• Ongoing support
  
  

Image Post-Processing Overview
As part of my genre-specific photography training, I offer an introductory overview of post-processing workflows (if required) using Adobe Lightroom, Canon Digital Photo Professional (DPP) and Microsoft Windows 10 / 11 Photo App. This introductory module is tailored to each participant’s JPG / RAW image requirements and provides a practical foundation for image refinement, image management, and creative expression - ensuring a seamless transition from capture to final output.

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).

Cabbage White 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

Bird Photography as Affect Theory

Vernon Chalmers’ Bird Photography as Affect Theory: A Reflective–Philosophical Analysis

Yellow-Billed Duck, Woodbridge Island : Vernon Chalmers Photography

“A fast duck does not race the wind - it becomes it. In motion, it forgets the river, the reeds, even the sky. It is only presence, winged and unbound.” - Vernon Chalmers

"This paper examines Vernon Chalmers’ bird photography - especially his Birds in Flight (BIF) practice - through the theoretical lens of affect. Drawing from the work of Spinoza, Massumi, Deleuze, Merleau-Ponty, and contemporary scholarship on affect theory, the essay explores how Chalmers’ photographic methodology embodies a phenomenology of intensity, relationality, and embodied perception. The argument positions BIF photography as a practice in which affect circulates among photographer, bird, environment, and camera system, generating pre-cognitive resonances that exceed representation. Affect is analyzed as force, motion, vitality, and embodied sensitivity - an ontological and epistemic mode revealed through the temporality and kinaesthetic demands of photographing birds in flight. Chalmers’ work is presented as a living example of affect theory in action, demonstrating how images can capture not only visual phenomena but also the energetic and existential conditions of being-with non-human life.

Introduction

Vernon Chalmers’ bird photography, particularly his extensive practice in photographing Birds in Flight (BIF), is often described in terms of technical mastery, perceptual acuity, and contemplative awareness. Yet beneath these descriptive layers lies a deeper philosophical structure that resonates strongly with contemporary affect theory. Affect theory - rooted in the work of Spinoza and expanded by thinkers such as Deleuze, Guattari, Massumi, and Sara Ahmed - emphasizes the pre-conceptual intensities that move through bodies and environments. These intensities are forces rather than representations, movements rather than meanings, sensations rather than symbols (Massumi, 2002).

In this sense, Chalmers’ photography does not simply document birds; it registers affective encounters. The BIF moment - sudden liftoff, wing beat, change of direction, cut of air - is an event saturated with force. It is an expression of vitality in which the photographer’s embodied focus, perceptual anticipation, and technological extension (camera, lens, autofocus systems) converge with the unpredictable flight of another living being.

This paper argues that Vernon Chalmers’ bird photography can be conceptualized as an affective practice. It captures, expresses, and co-creates affective intensities between human and avian life. Through a synthesis of affect theory, phenomenology, and photographic philosophy, the analysis positions Chalmers’ BIF work as a lived enactment of affective relationality - where perception becomes more than sight, and photography becomes more than representation.

Affect Theory: Conceptual Foundations 

Spinoza and the originary concept of affect

Affect theory originates in Spinoza’s understanding of affectus - the capacity of bodies to affect and be affected (Spinoza, 1677/2002). A “body” here is not merely a biological unit but any entity capable of relation, connection, transformation, or intensity. Affect is thus relational and dynamic; it precedes emotion and cognition. It is, as Massumi (2002) emphasizes, “a pre-personal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state to another” (p. 27).

Chalmers’ photography exemplifies this conceptualization. The encounter between photographer and bird is never static. Each moment of flight contains a passage - a movement of intensification in which both bird and photographer undergo micro-changes in orientation, attention, and energy.

Deleuze, Guattari, and affect as force and becoming

Deleuze and Guattari (1987) elaborate affect as a mode of becoming: transitional intensities that generate new relational forms. Affect is not what something is but what it does - it is movement, momentum, and modulation. For them, animals (including birds) are carriers of affective becoming: “Animals are populations of affects” (p. 256).

BIF photography is, in this sense, a becoming-with. The photographer attunes to the bird’s kinetic logic, entering a co-creative rhythm. The encounter is not simply observed; it is participated in.

Massumi and intensity

Brian Massumi (2002) positions affect as intensity - autonomous, non-representational, and embodied. Affect exceeds the image, yet the image can hint at it. Photography then becomes an affective archive: a record of intensities that cannot be fully captured but can be sensed.

This aligns directly with Chalmers’ photographic practice, where the goal is not merely anatomical fidelity but the expression of motion, vitality, and the energic pulse of avian life.

Phenomenology and Embodied Perception in BIF Photography

Affect theory often intersects with phenomenology, particularly in the work of Merleau-Ponty (1962), who argues that perception arises through embodied engagement with the world. Perception is not passive reception but active participation: “We perceive in order to inhabit” (Merleau-Ponty, 1968, p. 45).

The embodied practice of photographing birds in flight

Chalmers’ BIF methodology exemplifies this embodied perception. Capturing a bird in flight requires attunement to:

• bodily posture

• kinaesthetic balance

• muscular micro-adjustments

• environmental cues (wind, light, background)

• anticipatory sensing of avian movement

This is perception as lived bodily intentionality - what Sheets-Johnstone (2011) calls the “kinetic intelligence of the body.” Chalmers’ approach is inseparable from this bodily way of knowing.

Camera systems as extensions of the body

Affect theory also accommodates technological extension. Hansen (2006) argues that digital images and camera systems participate in affective processes, becoming “embodied prostheses of perception” (p. 20). Chalmers’ continual exploration of autofocus systems, tracking algorithms, and lens behaviour thus forms part of an affective ecology where technology participates in relational intensities.

The camera does not merely record; it co-perceives.

The affective temporality of the “decisive moment”

Unlike static subjects, birds in flight create an affective temporality that is:

• sudden

• unpredictable

• fleeting

• rhythmic

• charged with vitality

The “decisive moment” in BIF photography is not a singular instant but a temporal flow of micro-events. Chalmers’ images register this flow, capturing time as intensity - a Deleuzian “time-image” (Deleuze, 1985).

Grey Heron, Table Bay Nature Reserve : Vernon Chalmers Photography

Affect, Animals, and the Non-Human World

A central aspect of affect theory is its critique of anthropocentrism. Affect circulates across species boundaries, forming cross-species relational fields (Haraway, 2008).

Birds as affective beings

Birds are uniquely affective animals: their flight expresses intensity, momentum, and freedom. Their worlds - air currents, heights, visibility - are experienced through motion. As Gibson (1979) argued, every animal perceives according to its ecological niche. Birds perceive affordances of the sky, wind, and motion; BIF photography attempts to register these affordances visually.

Chalmers’ photographs can be understood as capturing the affective ecology of avian life.

Human–bird entanglement

Affect theory conceptualizes human–animal relations as entanglements (Barad, 2007). Chalmers’ practice produces such entanglement. His images arise from:

• attentiveness to avian behaviour

• respect for distance and timing

• ethical co-presence in natural environments

• sensitivity to non-human rhythms

This relational stance is affective: a shared field of vitality where the bird’s behaviour shapes the photographer’s perception.

    Flight as affective force

Flight is inherently affective. It is movement, becoming, force. Deleuze and Guattari (1987) suggest that “to fly is to deterritorialize,” meaning to break habitual forms of movement and perception. Chalmers’ BIF photography captures this deterritorialization, inviting viewers to sense the intensities of motion.

Affect and Technical Mastery in Bird Photography

Although affect theory resists the reduction of experience to technique, Chalmers’ technical mastery is part of the affective assemblage. Technique generates the conditions for affect to become visible.

The affective dimension of autofocus and tracking

Autofocus tracking of moving subjects is not merely mechanical. It is anticipatory, relational, and temporal. The photographer must sense:

• how fast to pan

• how to align with the bird’s trajectory

• how to maintain affective continuity through the viewfinder

• These actions are expressions of affective attunement.

Shutter speeds and the aesthetics of affect

Fast shutter speeds freeze affective intensity. Slow shutter speeds blur motion, revealing affective traces. Chalmers frequently negotiates this tension, choosing settings that convey the kinetic vitality of wings, motion, and atmospheric flow.

 Exposure and the emotional tonality of affect

Affect is tonal: it has gradations, weights, intensities. Lighting choices - backlighting, side lighting, diffuse lighting - shape the affective resonance of an image. Chalmers’ preference for natural coastal environments creates photographs infused with atmospheric affect.

Affect and the Viewer: How Chalmers’ Images Are Received

Affect does not end with the photographer. It continues in the viewer’s experience.

Images as affective triggers

According to Massumi (2015), images can trigger affective responses that bypass cognition. In Chalmers’ BIF photography:

• the sudden lift

• the spread of wings

• the tension of feathers

• the blurred background of velocity

• produce sensations of freedom, vitality, and awe.

Viewers enter the photographer’s embodied encounter

Merleau-Ponty (1968) suggests the image is a “reversible” surface: viewers inhabit the perceptual field created by the photographer. In this sense, Chalmers’ images convey his attentiveness and embodied stance, allowing viewers to sense the affective event as if participating in it.

Affect as existential resonance

Affect in Chalmers’ photography often carries existential weight. Viewers encounter not just birds but the conditions of possibility for life, motion, and being. The bird becomes a symbol of agency, contingency, and transience. This existential affect aligns with contemporary aesthetic theory, which holds that images can evoke ontological awareness (Sinnerbrink, 2020).

Kestrel Falcon, Woodbridge Island : Vernon Chalmers Photography 

Vernon Chalmers’ BIF Photography as Affective Practice

Drawing from the preceding theoretical frameworks, we can identify several ways in which Chalmers’ BIF photography functions as affect theory in practice.

1. It foregrounds relational intensity

Photography becomes a field of relation - not an act of capturing but of co-emergence. Bird, environment, photographer, and technological system form an affective assemblage.

2. It makes visible forces that exceed representation

Affect cannot be fully captured, but BIF images hint at invisible aerodynamic and kinetic forces.

3. It involves pre-cognitive attunement

The photographer responds intuitively - through embodied sensing and anticipatory movement - to avian behaviour.

4. It expresses vitality

Chalmers’ images show birds not as static taxonomic entities but as beings in motion - pulses of life, energy, and becoming.

5. It invites viewers into affective co-presence

Images act as conduits, transmitting pre-personal intensities to spectators.

Conclusion

Vernon Chalmers’ bird photography, and especially his BIF practice, can be fruitfully interpreted through the lens of affect theory. Rather than merely documenting avian behaviour, his images emerge from and express affective intensities - bodily attunements, relational fields, and temporal flows of motion. Chalmers’ work resonates deeply with Spinozist conceptions of relational capacity, Deleuzian ideas of becoming, Massumi’s framing of intensity, and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of embodied perception.

In capturing birds in flight, Chalmers participates in a co-creative rhythmic encounter between photographer, bird, environment, and technology. His practice is thus not only technical but ontological: it reveals the affective dimension of interspecies encounters. Ultimately, Chalmers’ bird photography can be seen as an affective art - one that registers the vitality of non-human life and invites viewers to sense the world anew." (Source: ChatGPT 2025)

References

Ahmed, S. (2014). The cultural politics of emotion (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.

Deleuze, G. (1985). Cinema 2: The time-image. University of Minnesota Press.

Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). University of Minnesota Press.

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Houghton Mifflin.

Hansen, M. B. (2006). Bodies in code: Interfaces with digital media. Routledge.

Haraway, D. (2008). When species meet. University of Minnesota Press.

Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Duke University Press.

Massumi, B. (2015). Politics of affect. Polity Press.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). Phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans.). Routledge.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible (A. Lingis, Trans.). Northwestern University Press.

Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2011). The primacy of movement (2nd ed.). John Benjamins.

Sinnerbrink, R. (2020). Aesthetics of film: Philosophy of film. Bloomsbury.

Spinoza, B. (2002). Ethics (E. Curley, Trans.). Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1677)

Birds in Flight Photography as Existential Challenge

Vernon Chalmers’s Birds in Flight photography is far more than a technical or aesthetic pursuit. It is a sustained engagement with existential themes that reveal photography’s capacity to shape human self-understanding.

White-Throated Swallow, Woodbridge Island : Vernon Chalmers Photography 

“Awareness doesn’t interrupt momentum: it challenges it.” - Vernon Chalmers

"Birds in flight (BIF) photography is often perceived as a technical niche within wildlife imaging, yet within the practice of Vernon Chalmers it takes on a distinctly existential character. This essay examines how Chalmers’s BIF methodology, pedagogy, and lived photographic experience operate as a philosophical confrontation with being, perception, and human presence in the world. Drawing on existential phenomenology, affect theory, and contemporary photographic studies, the analysis positions Chalmers’s work not merely as the pursuit of technical mastery but as a form of existential inquiry. The essay argues that BIF photography, when approached through Chalmers’s Conscious Intelligence (CI) sensibility, becomes a site of meaning-making where uncertainty, contingency, and embodied intentionality are made visible. The result is an original synthesis of photographic practice and existential thought that reframes BIF photography as a challenge to habitual seeing, habitual being, and the limits of human agency in relation to the non-human world.

Vernon Chalmers and the Existential Stakes of Birds in Flight Photography

Birds in flight photography has long captivated photographers because it is inherently difficult, ephemeral, and unpredictable. Yet these same qualities are precisely what draw Vernon Chalmers to the genre as a mode of existential inquiry. Instead of being reducible to technology, autofocus algorithms, or the biometrics of avian movement, BIF photography becomes a staging ground where the human photographer encounters the limits of control. Within this framework, Chalmers’s practice reveals an ontological dimension in which the image is not merely a record of an event but a manifestation of an encounter with the world’s openness.

Existential thinkers such as Sartre (1943/2003) and Merleau-Ponty (1945/2012) argue that human meaning emerges through active engagement with a world that resists total comprehension. In Chalmers’s BIF practice, this engagement is not theoretical but embodied. The photographer does not merely observe the bird; he participates in a shared temporality shaped by uncertainty and contingency. The bird’s trajectory, the shifting light, and the camera’s responsiveness form a triadic system in which the photographer’s intentionality must constantly adapt. This necessity for continuous adaptation reflects what Merleau-Ponty (1968) describes as the “flesh of the world” - a relational field in which human perception is both rooted and exposed.

Thus, BIF photography is not simply an artistic pursuit; it is a confrontation with existential conditions. To photograph a bird in flight is to accept risk, unpredictability, and non-mastery - conditions that mirror the larger human struggle for meaning.

The Embodied Intentionality of Tracking Flight

One of the central existential elements of Chalmers’s work lies in the embodied nature of the photographic act. In his training programs and reflective writings, Chalmers emphasises the photographer’s bodily presence: stance, balance, breathing, and muscular responsiveness. These factors are not merely ergonomic; they reflect the Heideggerian concept of being-in-the-world (Heidegger, 1927/2010), in which perception and action unfold together in a unified lived experience.

The act of tracking a bird in flight with a long lens is inherently precarious. The photographer must coordinate eyes, hands, body, and predictive imagination. This process is phenomenological: the photographer becomes attuned not only to the visible form of the bird but also to its possible future configurations in space and time. As Sheets-Johnstone (2011) suggests, movement generates meaning because it reveals the kinaesthetic logic by which bodies - human and non-human - navigate the world.

Chalmers’s approach foregrounds this logic. Every act of panning is a negotiation between anticipation and presence. The photographer is forced into an existential mode of attention: he can neither retreat into abstraction nor rely solely on instinct. He must inhabit the unfolding moment fully, accepting that each attempt carries the possibility of failure. In this sense, BIF photography becomes a training in existential humility. It reminds the photographer that mastery arises not through domination of the environment but through cooperation with the contingencies of the world.

Temporal Anxiety and the Ephemeral Threshold

A bird’s flight is a temporal phenomenon: it exists only in motion, and its aesthetic significance often lies in the fleeting moment where form, light, and gesture align. Chalmers’s practice foregrounds this temporality. He often describes moments where “everything comes together” - a convergence that cannot be predicted or repeated.

BIF photography thus brings the photographer face-to-face with what Sartre (1943/2003) calls the “facticity” of time. The moment is irrevocable; it cannot be reclaimed, reconstructed, or controlled. The photographer must accept that he is always slightly behind the event. The shutter releases after the moment is perceived, and therefore every photograph is a negotiation with loss.

This temporal anxiety - an awareness that every moment is slipping away - underpins the existential challenge of BIF photography. Chalmers’s work reveals that the photographer is not simply “capturing” flight but confronting the fragility of the present. The effort to freeze an instant becomes a metaphor for human attempts to grasp permanence in an impermanent world.

Contingency, Uncertainty, and the Existential Condition

Chalmers frequently highlights the unpredictable factors that shape BIF images: erratic flight paths, sudden wind changes, variable light, or the limitations of autofocus hardware. These variables cannot be eliminated; they must be embraced. The scene is an open system without guarantees.

In existential philosophy, uncertainty is not an obstacle to meaning but a precondition for it (Yalom, 1980). The uncertainty of the photographic field mirrors the uncertainty of human existence: both require decisions without perfect information. When Chalmers teaches BIF photography, he encourages photographers to tolerate ambiguity, to adapt fluidly, and to internalise failure as part of the learning process.

This attitude aligns with Kierkegaard’s (1844/2013) concept of the “leap” - the act of committing oneself without certainty. Each shutter press is a leap: a decision made amidst incomplete knowledge. The existential challenge lies in the fact that the outcome is never fully controllable. The photographer must act anyway, accepting responsibility for each choice.

Thus, BIF photography becomes an existential discipline. It demands courage, resilience, and the ability to act in the face of the unknown.

Cape Teal Ducks, Woodbridge Island : Vernon Chalmers Photography

The Non-Human Other: Ethics and Co-Presence

A key existential dimension of Chalmers’s work is his treatment of the bird as a sentient Other rather than a mere subject. Instead of approaching birds as objects to be captured, he emphasises respect, distance, and ecological awareness. This approach resonates with Levinas’s (1969) conception of ethical relation as an encounter with the face of the Other - a presence that calls the self into responsibility.

Although the bird’s face may not be visible in every image, its presence carries an ethical demand. To pursue BIF photography responsibly is to recognise the autonomy, vulnerability, and agency of avian life. Chalmers’s emphasis on natural behaviour, non-invasive shooting distances, and environmental stewardship demonstrates a commitment to this ethical dimension.

In existential terms, the bird becomes a reminder that the human photographer is not the centre of the world. Meaning emerges not from domination but from co-presence. The bird’s freedom—the very thing that makes flight so difficult to photograph—symbolises the limits of human control. Chalmers’s practice acknowledges these limits and turns them into a source of aesthetic and existential insight.

Conscious Intelligence and Reflective Photography

Chalmers’s Conscious Intelligence (CI) philosophy adds another existential layer to his BIF work. CI foregrounds awareness, reflection, and the integration of cognitive and affective processes within artistic practice. It connects to existential psychology’s emphasis on self-knowledge, intentionality, and authenticity (van Deurzen, 2012).

Through CI, BIF photography becomes more than a technical exercise; it becomes a practice of self-cultivation. The photographer learns:

• to quiet internal noise,

• to manage expectations,

• to confront frustration and failure,

• to remain open to the unexpected,

• and to reflect on the meaning of each encounter.

This aligns with the existential assertion that authentic living requires a willingness to engage deeply with one’s experience rather than defaulting to automatic, unreflective modes of being. Chalmers’s pedagogy encourages photographers to move beyond habitual seeing and into a state of heightened presence where perception becomes intentional and meaningful.

The CI framework thus transforms BIF photography into a form of existential mindfulness. Each moment of tracking, waiting, observing, or releasing the shutter becomes an opportunity for reflective awareness.

CI Theory in Focus: Photography as Foundation

Technical Mastery as Existential Dialogue

Chalmers is well known for his detailed understanding of Canon EOS systems, autofocus behaviour, and high-performance tracking techniques. However, in the existential framing, technical mastery is not pursued as a means of dominating nature. Instead, it serves as a language through which the photographer enters into dialogue with the world.

Technology, in this view, becomes a mediator of human possibility. Following Don Ihde’s (1990) post-phenomenological philosophy of technology, the camera is not a neutral tool but an extension of the photographer’s embodied perception. It shapes how the world appears and how the photographer engages with it.

Chalmers’s expertise with camera systems therefore represents more than technical proficiency. It reflects an existential desire to refine one’s ability to respond to the world. Mastery becomes an ethical and aesthetic responsibility—a way of honouring the complexity of avian motion by preparing oneself to meet it fully.

Failure, Acceptance, and the Existential Journey

Every BIF photographer experiences failure: missed focus, clipped wings, motion blur, poorly exposed frames. In Chalmers’s teaching philosophy, failure is not a deficiency but a horizon for growth. Each unsuccessful image reveals something about the photographer’s assumptions, timing, perception, or technical choices.

Existential psychotherapy suggests that individuals grow by confronting the limits of their abilities and accepting responsibility for their choices (May, 1983). Chalmers’s approach mirrors this stance: photographers are encouraged to analyse their misses, adjust their technique, and re-enter the field with humility and renewed intentionality.

Failure becomes a form of dialogue with the world. It teaches the photographer to recalibrate expectations, to refine perceptual timing, and to accept that the world does not conform to human desires. In this way, BIF photography reflects the broader existential challenge of living with imperfection.

Birds-in-Flight Photography as Existential Practice

Synthesising the elements above, Chalmers’s BIF work can be considered an existential practice with the following characteristics:

• Embodiment – The photographer’s body is integral to the act of perception and cannot be removed from the aesthetic process.

• Temporality – The fleeting nature of flight forces an awareness of the impermanence of all moments.

• Contingency – Uncertainty is embraced as part of the creative field.

• Ethical relation – The bird is not an object but an Other whose freedom must be respected.

• Reflective engagement – CI fosters self-awareness and existential meaning.

• Failure and resilience – The practice teaches acceptance, perseverance, and adaptability.

Through this lens, BIF photography becomes an existential challenge because it forces the photographer to confront aspects of human existence that are often ignored: uncertainty, finitude, vulnerability, and the irreducibility of the non-human world.

Vernon Chalmers Birds in Flight Photography CI

Conclusion

Vernon Chalmers’s Birds-in Flight photography is far more than a technical or aesthetic pursuit. It is a sustained engagement with existential themes that reveal photography’s capacity to shape human self-understanding. By embracing uncertainty, respecting the autonomy of the natural world, and foregrounding embodied perception, Chalmers transforms BIF photography into a reflective practice that challenges habitual modes of being.

Through the Conscious Intelligence framework, he brings together mastery, embodiment, and existential awareness in a way that reframes BIF photography as a lived philosophical inquiry. The result is a photographic practice that confronts human limitations while celebrating the beauty, freedom, and unpredictability of avian life. In this encounter between human and bird, photographer and world, an existential challenge emerges—one that continues to shape both Chalmers’s pedagogy and the evolving meaning of BIF photography within contemporary photographic discourse." (Source: ChatGPT 2025)

References

Heidegger, M. (2010). Being and time (J. Stambaugh, Trans.). State University of New York Press. (Original work published 1927)

Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to earth. Indiana University Press.

Kierkegaard, S. (2013). The concept of anxiety (A. Hannay, Trans.). W. W. Norton. (Original work published 1844)

Levinas, E. (1969). Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority (A. Lingis, Trans.). Duquesne University Press.

May, R. (1983). The discovery of being: Writings in existential psychology. W. W. Norton.

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

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1968). The visible and the invisible (A. Lingis, Trans.). Northwestern University Press.

Sartre, J.-P. (2003). Being and nothingness (H. E. Barnes, Trans.). Routledge. (Original work published 1943)

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