Today we’d like to introduce you to Roy Dunn.
Hi Roy, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Graduated university in Australia in 1982 in microchip design. Flew to London in 1983 and worked in research labs doing chip design for 6 years. Moved into software for the next 12 years. Moved to the US (North Carolina) in 1996. Global management roles. In 2001 started my own company designing and producing high speed photographic flash systems for shooting hummingbirds in flight. Moved to SoCal in 2004, consulted in Silicon Valley for several years. In 2012, completed a Masters in Spiritual Psychology. (I remain an atheist). During all this time, I was a passionate wildlife photographer, concentrating on scientific and high speed photography of animals and birds. In 1989 I began camera trapping with a modified Hasselblad and Metz flash guns, along with a laser trigger I designed myself, Been hooked ever since. In 2016/7 I began photographing the nocturnal mammals around SoCal, particularly the mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains and the Verdugos, just north of Burbank. Also managed some great imagery of the now famous P-22. Footage has been used by Disney/NatGeo, AppleTV, and recently RANfilm, an Austrian film company. Moved to Cambria in 2024 and now spend time camera trapping the abundant wildlife here, mainly on conservancy properties. I mentor two up-and-coming photographers and cinematographers, which I find very rewarding, and sell limited editions of my hummingbird work through a local gallery called the Vault, in Cambria. I also started photographing humans around 2011 and found it exceedingly rewarding, and hope to set up a local studio here in Cambria to continue with it.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Apart from the obvious and welcome technical challenges of a lot of the photography I do (I am a nerd who loves solving problems), I haven’t had many issues. I have had a blessed career and have worked with some wonderful people, for which I will forever be grateful.
There are a few folks who used me to climb their own ladders, and while I wouldn’t work with them again, I am ok with the imbalance of giving/receiving and lack of credit/acknowledgment (which was significant).
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am most well known for my images of hummingbirds interacting in flight. I did this work from about 1996 for about two decades, shooting north of 750000 images. This was all before advances in camera technology made it easy. I was using manual focus, and custom designed flash units that produced images that folks thought must have been done in Photoshop. I created pure white and pure black backgrounds ‘in camera’ through careful and thoughtful technique of applying lighting, not on a computer screen. Many of those images still sell well today, even though it is SO much easier to photograph hummers with current cameras. It is really now just a case of point-n-shoot, so the technical challenge has disappeared. I ceased shooting hummers about 10 years ago and really concentrated on camera trapping.
I mentioned I am a nerd, and it is a little paradoxical for me to have my work regarded as art, (Both hummers and mountain lions), but people call it art, so that is good enough for me 🙂
What makes you happy?
Waking up every morning, I pinch myself with gratitude. I have lost a lot of friends on the way who don’t get that privilege. My psychology degree helped me lose my materialist mentality, and I am overwhelmingly satisfied with what I have and who I am. I live daily in awe of my wife, who is the best thing that ever happened to me, and anyone who knows me knows that I regard myself as the luckiest guy alive. I came from nothing and have a life and lifestyle I never dared dream of, and spend it sharing it with my lovely wife. It’s awesome. We are both at our happiest hiking anywhere with our dog, Molly.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.humanstohummingbirds.com
Image Credits
All images Roy Dunn
