Outdoor Photography Canada

Over the next few issues of OPC I will be featuring some lesser-known photographers who, in my opinion, are deserving of recognition. Here I present to you the second in our series called, “Are You the Best or the Best-Kept Secret?”

Photo: ©Andrew McLachlan  American toad

Andrew McLachlan

Andrew McLachlan is a freelance photographer/writer from Ontario. For as long as he can remember, he has been fascinated by the natural world. Photography has become an extension of that love. If he didn’t own a camera, he would still be hiking along dense boreal forest trails, canoeing through wetlands and observing all that he loves about nature. Extensive travels throughout Ontario have resulted in a large, diverse collection of images featuring landscapes and flora and fauna within the province, from the remote Abitibi Canyon to Temagami’s old growth forests, from the Ottawa Valley to Thunder Bay and throughout southern Ontario too. 

  Many of McLachlan’s photographs have been published by numerous publications including Outdoor Photography Canada, Ducks Unlimited Canada, Harrowsmith, Country Life, Cottage Life, Canadian Wildlife Federation, Nature Canada, Ontario Nature, Canadian Gardening and Teldon Calendars. In addition to photographing Ontario’s natural world, he also has a growing collection of agricultural imagery and Caribbean-related photographs. Recently, he has been creating artistic renditions of images as they pertain to the various software techniques he’s using to create them.

  McLachlan’s favourite wildlife subjects to photograph are frogs and toads. He finds they have real personalities, but the trick to creating pleasing images of them is to get down low. Often times this means getting into the pond with them and getting wet, but the end result is usually well worth the effort. One of McLachlan’s artistic renditions of a grey tree frog image was recently featured in Arthur Morris’ Birds as Art Bulletin #375.

Accomplishments

On a recent trip to Cuba’s Cayo Santa Maria in the Jardines del Rey archipelago, a UNESCO World Biosphere, he photographed what is now believed to be the first record of a melanistic/genetic variant for green-backed herons. McLachlan was invited by Dr. Kushlan of the International Union for Conservation of Nature to write a paper for its Heron Conservation Group online journal on his observations of this unusual variant.

  McLachlan has had three of his images go to the final round of judging in the BBC/Veolia Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition — two images in 2010’s competition and one in 2011.

  He will soon be announcing the release of his first eBook, A Photographer’s Guide to the Ontario Landscape, with foreword by OPC columnist Mike Grandmaison. To find out more about the eBook and how to order your copy log onto www.andrewmclachlan.ca and follow along on his blog at www.andrewmclachlan.wordpress.com.

  McLachlan has taken a passion for the natural world and used it to showcase his vision through photography. We look forward to seeing more great work from him.

Join us again next issue when we discover yet another one of Canada’s “best-kept secrets.”

Editor-in-Chief

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