competition came four years later in- He had another set of six pictures
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that small area of northern Europe, which
has been his home and favoured photo
haunt throughout his life. His competition
success is further proof that the best
pictures are often made in an
environment as familiar as your own
home – requiring frequent return trips,
local knowledge, and a depth of
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visit can never truly attain.
But with age comes maturity, and
Michel has now broadened his horizons
beyond Europe’s shores to the more
distant continents for his compelling and
elegant studies of animals in their snowy
surroundings. He may no longer be a
rising star, but Michel d’Oultremont’s
newly-launched professional career is
well and truly in orbit with no obvious
signs of stopping...
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of nature or photography?
Without a shadow of a doubt my love of
nature. I did a lot of ornithology when I
was a kid and started watching animals
at the age of 12 with an old pair of
binoculars. The photography came
later from around the age of 15.In the early years of your
photographic development,
who was your mentor and what
did you learn from them?
I had the chance to start digitally,
meaning I could see my mistakes
instantly on the camera screen, which
was a good way to work out what to do
next time. I was also active on nature
photography forums and that helped me
a lot. I met wonderful people who gave
good advice: Franck Renard, Christophe
Salin, Dimitri Crickillon. All have since
become very good friends with whom I
still share a lot of things today.Your photography has also evolved
during this period. What have
been the most profound changes
in the way you work?
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that showed the animal at its best,
basically just record shots. But soon
I wanted to show them in their
environment, so I began trying out new
ways of framing the subject and their
surroundings to show another aspect of
nature. It was from that point that my
photography started becoming more
aesthetic and a little bit less naturalistic.What was your ‘breakthrough’
image that you think allowed
you to get noticed and raise
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I think it has to be the series of pictures
I made in the swamps of black-necked
grebes. I was photographing at eye-level
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and shooting into the setting sun, which
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ÁDUHLQWKHIUDPH7KHVHLPDJHVDOORZHG
me to win several international awards,
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in the 2014 Wildlife Photographer of the
Year competition.:KDWZDV\RXUÀUVW&DQRQFDPHUD
and which ones followed as you
continued to upgrade?
0\YHU\ÀUVWFDPHUDZDVDQ(26'
which I used with an old EF 300mm f/4.
Then I moved up to the Canon EOS 40D
and changed my lens to a 20-year-old EFI was photographing
at eye-level with the
water, lying on a floating
hide and shooting into
the setting sun
(^02) MUSK OX BATTLE, NORWAY
Part of a sequence capturing the head-on
assault between two male musk oxen in
mid-winter at Dovrefjell National Park
Lens Canon EF 500mm f/4L IS USM
Exposure 1/4000 sec, f/4, ISO200
(^03) WINGS OF AN EAGLE
An adult Steller’s sea eagle glides over
the spectacular winter landscape of
Hokkaido’s mountains in Japan’s far north
Lens Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM
Exposure 1/4000 sec, f/5, ISO320
(^04) FOX TROT
Michel photographed foxes during a
month-long winter stay in Hokkaido
Lens Canon EF 600mm f/4L IS II USM
Exposure 1/8000 sec, f/4, ISO2500
02
74 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
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