Connie Kinley
Name: Connie Kinley
Camera: Sony A1
Favourite type of photography: Wildlife, nature and travel
Location: Surrey, England.
Website: conniekinley.myportfolio.com
Instagram: @conniekphotography
How did you get into photography?
My dad was a keen photographer, so I picked up one of his old cameras for family travel. After that, I always seemed to be taking pictures. My husband then gifted me my first ‘proper’ SLR in 2003, at which point I tried to learn more about the art and craft of photography, mostly through magazines and taking lots of pictures. I went digital quite late, so I also learned a lot through the limitations imposed by slide photography.
Do you have any photographic qualifications or accolades?
No. But I’ve been quite successful in winning competitions at my local camera club, which I joined two years ago.
What's the first photograph you remember seeing or shooting?
I remember walking around our house to fill my first ever film with my dad’s old camera. But the first photographer I became aware of was Ansel Adams and his images of Yellowstone.
What do you love about photography?
I love that it makes me be in the moment, concentrating on the scene whilst silencing anything else out, and the thrill of capturing something fleeting, special and unique. Also, I love finding and observing wildlife which I would never have done without having a camera with me. Taking pictures also creates different memories for me than just looking at a scene, so I feel more connected with the world around me, particularly when I then look back at the images I created.
Read our Guide to Understanding Camera Sensor Sizes
What do you wish you'd learned about photography earlier?
It would have been helpful to be more interested in the tech-side of photography. I focused more on composition and the art of taking photos that I liked and I should have devoted more energy to getting to grips with my camera and post-processing skills
Where is your favourite place for photography?
Anywhere where there are bears.
Do you have a favourite photographic technique?
I’m quite a realistic photographer now. In the past, I would have worked on creating abstract macro images of plants, patterns and flowers, but now that my main focus is wildlife, I only occasionally use things like ICM, high-key or monochrome photography. So, now my main focus is on shooting interesting behaviour or interactions, as well as animal portraits where possible.
Can you briefly outline your approach to image processing?
I load images into my ‘Darkroom’ folder in Lightroom and start deleting. With wildlife, I usually set the camera to H or H+, so I often end up with 1000s of images for each outing. I would typically keep only 10% from each shoot. I then try to find the best image for social media and, if it’s a longer post the top 20ish. I would then process only those. In Lightroom, I try ‘Auto’ first and hand-straighten the image. If the colours don’t look right I do things like adjusting the exposure, reducing highlights and greens, increasing the warmth of the image, reducing distractions through minimal healing, sharpening and denoising. If the image is very noisy, I use Topaz Sharpen AI. I then rename all the photos to ‘YY.MM.DD.name.000’ and move them to my ‘Album’ in their relevant geographical folder. In the background, I have two back-ups going, one to my local external hard drive every day and one to iDrive in the cloud every week.
What's your favourite lens?
I usually shoot with the Sony 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM which is great, but I absolutely love the Sony 400 prime.
Do you have a favourite accessory?
Anything that keeps rain off me and my camera. I have a poncho that I can sit or lie on to take ground-level shots, and when it rains it covers me and my camera bag and any gear I’m holding. I can combine that with a big lens sleeve to keep shooting.
Have you found the perfect camera bag yet?
I don’t think there is one perfect bag. I have a big Lowepro for airline travel that takes all my gear, but it gets really heavy. I like to walk a lot, so unless I‘m sitting in a hide all day, I use a smaller non-camera waterproof Samsonite rucksack. I usually put a spare body and smaller lens into lens bags inside the rucksack and just carry my camera and zoom on a Peak Design crossbody camera strap.
Read our Peak Design Slide Lite Review
Which photographers have influenced or inspired you, and how or why?
I take inspiration from most photographers I meet as there is usually something that they do or how they do it that triggers a thought or question in me about my own work. If I had to choose, though, I find Joel Sartore’s Photo Ark inspiring in the simplicity of his compositions and the importance of his work, and Tin Man Lee, whose wildlife images are just beautifully composed and exposed.
Please recommend 2 or 3 female photographers to follow on Instagram.
Daisy Gilardini @daisygilardini, Griet Van Malderen @grietvanm, Anke Kneifel @anke_kneifel
Is there a camera, lens or accessory that you don't have yet but you'd like to buy at some point?
Sony A9 III camera
Is there a genre of photography that you love but that you haven't tried yet?
Not so much a genre in itself, but I’d love to become proficient at Photoshop so that I can turn some of my wildlife images into abstract or fine art images.
What's your proudest photographic moment?
I’m not really motivated by competitions, but I was immensely proud to win the first competition I ever entered in my camera club.
If you could have one superpower that could help you with photography, what would it be?
Being undetectable so that I can get closer to animals without spooking them or making them want to eat me.
Your favourite baked goods are?
Croissants and chocolate biscuits
Tell us a little about yourself.
I moved to England in the 1990s from Germany to study and have since settled here with my husband, son and two cats. I’m an occupational psychologist and have worked in consultancy and HR roles throughout my career. I’m now self-employed, which means I have a lot more time for photography. I love travelling, and having worked for an airline, I have done quite a bit, both with and without my camera. More recently I have been able to combine my love for wildlife photography with some pretty cool wildlife trips, with a long list of places and species I’d like to see and photograph in the future. I have a year before I may have an empty nest, and I’m really excited about the opportunities this could bring in terms of photography and travel, assuming my health will let me.
