Matthew Maran Podcast

Steve Backshall is a naturalist, author and presenter best know for BBC’s Deadly 60 – a programme aimed at young people that features Steve and his camera crew attempting to find the ‘most deadly’ animals in the world.

Chris Packham is a broadcaster, naturalist, writer, photographer, filmmaker, conservationist and campaigner. He presents BBC’s BAAFTA award winning Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch series and numerous other natural history documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic and The Discovery Channel.

Neil Aldridge is a conservationist and multi award-winning photographer with more than 35 awards in major international competitions. He lectures at the prestigious Marine and Natural History degree course at Falmouth University and has worked for several leading NGOs in the wildlife and environment sector.

Neil Aldridge is a conservationist and multi award-winning photographer with over 35 awards in major international competitions. He lectures at the prestigious Marine and Natural History degree course at Falmouth University and has worked for several leading NGOs in the wildlife and environment sector.

Jo-Anne McArthur is a multi award-winning photographer, author and speaker. She specialises in photographing the ‘invisible animals’ - the animals we eat, wear, test on and confine, yet rarely see. Over the past 20 years Jo has worked tirelessly to shine a light on the suffering of billions of animals exploited for human consumption. Her investigative work has seen her travel to more than 60 countries where she has documented wide ranging subjects from puppy mills and circuses, to fur farms and bull fighting.

Jo-Anne McArthur is a multi award-winning photographer, author and speaker. She specialises in photographing the ‘invisible animals’ - the animals we eat, wear, test on and confine, yet rarely see. Over the past 20 years Jo has worked tirelessly to shine a light on the suffering of billions of animals exploited for human consumption. Her investigative work has seen her travel to more than 60 countries where she has documented wide ranging subjects from puppy mills and circuses, to fur farms and bull fighting.

After nine years working as the Senior Picture Editor at National Geographic Kids magazine Karine Aigner ventured into the world of freelance photography. Drawing on her wealth of knowledge as an editor, Karine’s body of work is powerful, varied and tells creative stories with her images with a focus on animals and their relationships with humans.

Roxy - AKA ‘Roxy The Zoologist’ - is a wildlife biologist, photographer, activist, filmmaker, and presenter. After graduating with a first class honours in Zoology, Roxy landed a ‘dream’ job as a wildlife guide in the west of Scotland. Things didn’t turn out as planned but this didn’t stop her pursuing her dream of creating visual content, using both moving and still images to tell stories about protecting animals and their habitats.

Staffan is a founding member of the Wild Wonders of Europe – an initiative that celebrates Europe’s natural wonders through photographic exhibitions, books and printed media. It started 11 years ago and became one of the biggest conservation communication initiatives in the world. To date, the project can boast reaching 800 million people worldwide with incredible images ranging from Scandanavian wolves to sperm whales in the Azores.

Bertie is a wildlife filmmaker, photographer and presenter who at the age of 25 already has three online series under his belt for National Geographic as well as presenting his work to huge audiences on the National Geographic Live tour across North America. He has filmed extensively for the BBC including their landmark series Planet Earth 2, Wild Cities and Seven Worlds, One Planet.

After graduating with a Masters in Environmental Technology from Imperial College, London, Josh Kempinski’s career in conservation has seen him work in countries including Liberia, Mozambique, Greece, Belize, Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam. He has worked on a number of projects fulfilling a variety of roles as a Field Conservation Advisor, Protected Area Management Specialist and a Senior REDD+ Specialist.

After running a successful PR agency in London, Margot Raggett’s career took a new direction as she followed her passion for wildlife photography. A regular visitor to Kenya, in east Africa, her interest in photography, which began as a hobby, quickly flourished into a full time career. Margot now produces high quality images that are published worldwide. She is a category winner in the prestigious Nature’s Best Photography Awards and a regular ‘Photographer in Residence’ at Entim camp in the Maasai Mara, leading photographic tours there and elsewhere in Kenya.

My guest today is Pete Cairns. Pete is a professional photographer and the founding director of The Wild Media Foundation, a social enterprise, which includes initiatives such as SCOTLAND: the Big Picture – an organisation that informs, inspires and influences fresh thinking around the potential for a wilder Scotland. He also co-founded the Wild Wonders of Europe project, which brought together 70 of the continent’s most talented nature photographers and sent them on 145 assignments across 48 European countries to gather more than 200,000 stunning images, showcasing Europe’s rich diversity and to promote conservation as a force for good.

Jasper is a multi award-winning photographer based in the Netherlands. After numerous outdoor trips with his parents who were keen hikers and nature lovers, Jasper began photographing at an early age. He studied biology to gain a better understanding of the subjects he wanted to photograph and at the age of 20 he tried his luck in a Dutch photography competition, entering the professional award as an amateur and duly won it. Fast forward nearly 20 years and Jasper’s images have been published worldwide in Geo, Smithsonian and National Geographic Magazines and his photo stories have been awarded recently in the World Press Photo Awards and the Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Stephanie Foote is a wildlife photographer and videographer with a first class degree in Natural History Photography. Based in the historic city of Cambridge, Stephanie hopes to bridge the gap between the science and arts, using her camera as a tool to bring people closer to nature and highlight the threats to wildlife and habitats around the world.

Andy Parkinson is one of Europe’s most awarded wildlife photographers, with over 100 awarded images across the major nature photography competitions. He was the overall winner of the Bird Photographer of the Year on 2016 and the most successful photographer in the history of the British Wildlife Photography Awards. He has three awards in each of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year and European Wildlife Photographer of the Year. Andy is also a feature contributor to National Geographic and his work is widely published in magazines such as Terre Sauvage, Geo and BBC Wildlife.

London born, Bristol based photographer Sam Hobson began his career in photography studying for a wildlife photography degree in Blackpool. The city, not exactly renowned for it's exotic wildlife, was an inspiration for Sam and he set about working with what he had in terms of basic equipment and subject matter.

Helen Gilks has been working in the field of natural history images for over 30 years. Her career began researching and editing children's natural before working briefly as an assistant editor on BBC Wildlife Magazine. In 1984 Helen took on the management of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competiton and Exhibitions, jointly organised by the Magazine and the Natural History Museum, London. Ten years later she was asked to set up a stills photo library for the BBC Natural History Unit and in 2002 took over the library – now Nature Picture Library – as her own business.

Eddie is a photographer, designer, writer, editor, bookmaker, mentor, workshop leader – basically the ideal guest for this podcast! Eddie got interested in photography while at University, photographing and writing for a student magazine. After moving to London in 1984 he signed up for a photojournalism course at the London College of Printing (now called the London College of Contemporary Arts) and began mastering the art of black and white printing. Fast forward a few years and Eddie set up his own magazine entitled AG+ and was an early adopter of self-publishing, creating books and manuals about darkroom techniques. The British Journal of Photography bought AG+ magazine and Eddie went on to run workshops and teach at universities and colleges for Ilford and Kodak. He later worked as a commissioning editor and book designer for Argentum for several years, commissioning a wide variety of landscape and wildlife photo books.

Al graduated from Newcastle University with a First Class honours in Marine Biology. His love of music and skills as a DJ saw him move from science into publishing in 1999, cutting his teeth on the underground hip-hop magazine Fatboss, based in the offices of Blues and Soul magazine. Working in small team Al honed his skills in writing, interviewing and editing. His next job was an ambitious project for the clothing brand Maharishi, resulting in DPM: an Encyclopaedia of Camouflage, a two-volume, 944 page illustrated book exploring the camouflage pattern in nature, military and fashion. Fashion A-Z: An Illustrated Dictionary soon followed for Laurence King, before his book Greensleeves: The First 100 Covers for clothing brand Stussy, celebrating the album cover art of London-based reggae label Greensleeves Records.