Image Gallery - Photo Shelter

(searchable database with download and purchase options)

 

Older "style" Galleries (no longer updated)

 

 

ALAMY Stock Library

 

Web Image Display

Some images may appear slightly soft in focus, or may present with some mild sharpening artifacts.  The crude nature of placing images on the Internet, unless you are prepared to spend a lot of time and effort preparing images for web publishing, can reduce the quality of an image.   It's common for an image when printed to be tack sharp, but to appear slightly soft when published to the web.  It's a constant challenge applying just the "right amount" of sharpening to ensure an image is sharp for the web, but doesn't show sharpening artifacts.  Often, image quality depends more on the type of monitor you are using and its resolution. 

The images in the following galleries have not been digitally manipulated (backgrounds changed, etc).  Standard enhancement in Photoshop CS-3 has been done (levels, curves, saturation, contrast, brightness, white balance and sharpening). The designation of some images cross over with each other.  For example,  macro photographs of flowers are located in the Flora Gallery and not the Macro Gallery. 

Nomenclature - Scientific and Common Names 

I have attempted to the best of my knowledge to provide the scientific and most common name used.  Reference books and the Internet have been cross referenced in an attempt to ensure accuracy, however, I am not a trained taxonomic biologist, so please excuse any errors on my behalf. 

Often determining the scientific name for a species is fraught with difficulty.  This is especially evident when there are several variations (colour, size, texture, pattern) of a particular species.  For example, many nudibranchs and other invertebrates cannot be accurately identified to species level without killing and dissecting the animal.  Furthermore, there are millions of invertebrates, and many have not been catalogued and named by professionals.   

I cannot impress on you the importance of a correct Latin scientific name when identifying an animal.  Common names more than often alter geographically and often are changed by younger generations.  Scientific names undergo a relatively rigorous process before acceptance and are accepted worldwide without hindrance by cultural and language boundaries.  Likewise, if a scientific name is altered (and they are from time to time), the process is well regulated and recorded. 

If you are keen on photographing animals and plants and want to accurately identify them, try your best to learn taxonomic nomenclature.  In the long run, your life and the lives of others who view your work will be a lot easier than if you used common names only.

These pages will be added to on a regular basis.  It takes considerable time to catalogue, name, sort, post process and publish images; on average I am about 6 months behind shooting before I post to the web.

• For optimum viewing, adjust your brightness and contrast settings of your monitor until you can see all the squares pictures below.