Heather Angel

Heather is an award-winning photographer who has been at the forefront of nature photography in Britain for three decades.

 

Born Heather Hazel Le Rougetel on 21 July 1941.

 

Her love of the natural world began during her childhood summer holidays spent on her maternal grandparents' Suffolk farm. It was therefore a natural progression for her to study zoology at University; but at that time she had no ambition to be a photographer.

 

Heather graduated from Bristol University, in 1962, and then took part in a 3-month underwater expedition to Norway – she was the only woman amongst eight men. Here, she took her first pictures – all of marine life – with an Exakta camera, which her father gave her as a 21st birthday present.

 

A period of marine biological research followed when Heather began to write articles on marine life in her spare time. In 1965 Heather worked as part-time assistant plankton sorter at the National Institute of Oceanography.

Gradually, photography began to impinge on the marine biology and some years later she turned freelance. So began a peripatetic life travelling repeatedly from the poles to the tropics in her quest for arresting wildlife photographs.

 

In 1966 she became an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society, followed in 1971 when she became a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society

 

Her work has been recognised by world-wide honours and awards. In 1986, an Honorary Doctorate of Science was conferred on her by Bath University. When Nottingham University appointed her a Special Professor in 1994, she was the first British wildlife photographer to be so honoured. Four years later, the BioCommunications Association of USA made her their 1998 Louis Schmidt Laureate. From 1984-86 Heather Angel was President of the Royal Photographic Society; only the second lady President within the Society’s 152-year history. In 2000, Practical Photography described her as ‘the doyenne of nature photography’.

To date, she has produced 47 books to date.

 

Some examples of Heather's macro photography are shown below:

 

 

Analysis of Images

 

Heather has used the lens to capture the texture of the plants that she has photographed, with a large aperture to isolate the subject from it’s surroundings, with the exception of the Pond Cameo (row 3, column 1) where she has kept the leaf in sharp focus.

 

The photographs have vibrant colours and the elements in the photograph form interesting shapes.