13 Jul 2015

Intrepid wildlife photographer, Steve Winter

From Nine To Noon, 10:07 am on 13 July 2015

He's been attacked by rhinos, charged by an 11 foot Siberian grizzly bear and trapped in quicksand. All to get that perfect photo.

Intrepid is almost too mild a word for National Geographic photographer Steve Winter, who slept in a tent for six months at high altitudes and temperatures of minus 40 degrees, as part of his quest to track and photograph a snow leopard.

He's visited villages so isolated that the locals have never seen a camera before, let alone a white person with blonde hair.

Steve Winter started working for National Geographic in 1991, specialising in wildlife and in particular big cats. “I didn’t choose big cats. Big cats chose me.” 

It all started in the mid 1990's when he was photographing birds in the mountains of Guatemala, his very first story for National Geographic. He woke up one morning to find a black jaguar at his cabin door. He began photographing big cats, and working with National Geographic developed a remote camera trap system. The shutter is triggered when an animal passes an infrared beam, allowing him to capture remarkable images of the big cats roaming freely in their natural habitat.

He talks to Lynn Freeman about his work.

Steve Winter is coming to our shores in August to speak about how he manages to track down big cats in dangerous and remote locations, and will share some of his photographs.