Alan Murphy grew up on the beautiful countryside of Ireland and England. At a very young age, he developed an interest in bird watching after his parents gave him a pair of binoculars and a bird field guide. Soon it became his main hobby and as he got older, his fascination grew.
“I was quickly overwhelmed with the number of species in North America. So many of the species were so alike that I thought that if I could get a few snap shots of some of these birds, I could use the prints as a way to compare them to the field guides and my learning curve would be faster,” he said in an interview with Kruger-2-Kalahari.
After studying the guides, he wanted to capture similar images and he started to learn photography as well.
“I love the challenge of getting close to birds, the creative aspect of designing the image and the technical challenge of the camera settings. There are always more birds to shoot than I have time for, and there are always better images to be made than the ones I have, so bird photography will be my passion for the rest of my life.”
Besides his photography career, Murphy also leads workshops and teaches other photographers how to capture the perfect shot. He’s also the author of a CD book entitled The Guide to Songbird Set-Up Photography and the author of two popular eBooks The Photographer’s Guide to Attracting Birds and The Guide to Songbird Set-up Photography.
Check out some of his photos below.
