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For this month’s Instagram spotlight, we had the chance to talk to wildlife and travel photographer Kurt Simon Müller. Swiss born, Kurt has been inspired by the amazing landscapes of his country and became passionate about wildlife during his school years. By seeking remote places and avoiding peak seasons, Kurt aims to bring out the beauty of animals and nature.

Read on to find out more about the work that goes into producing these stunning images and hopefully you’ll be inspired to capture wildlife and nature yourself.

LP: Can you tell us a bit about yourself – what brought you to photography and how did you specialise in wildlife and travel photography?

KM: It all began with dreams and a passion for life. I was born in Switzerland but my eyes were firmly set on distant, far-flung horizons. My country is full of spectacular landscapes, and my dream was to recreate what I saw there, through images that would accompany me through my life. I borrowed money from my accommodating brother to buy a decent set of camera equipment. Rest assured – it was paid back in full.

My passion for wildlife was developed during my early school years. I turned into perhaps the most regular schoolboy visitor ever to Zürich’s amazing Natural History Museum. Exciting skeletons of whales and mammoths prevailed, and attending a snake exhibition on a Lake Zurich cruise boat was part of my initial wildlife experiences.

Time to really pursue photography only came in the second part of my life. My photography was never going to be at a professional level, but I figured I could perhaps dare to follow in Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s footsteps. He said: “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” Wildlife and nature photography can be very exciting, but it involves a sublime amount of planning, preparation, editing, patience, patience…

LP: What are the biggest challenges you face when travelling and photographing wildlife, and how do you overcome them?

KM: People love ‘wildlife’, defined in their minds as ‘wild cats’ – and the annual wildebeest migrations. Fascinating though these experiences can be, they are now so completely overcrowded that even a zoo encounter can be more fulfilling.

I much prefer discovering my own ‘neck of the woods’ and seeking more remote places. I avoid peak seasons and try the rainy season. I make it easy on myself: I love literally all animals and have spent much time with warthogs for their very own, special ‘magic’, antelopes for their slender grace and elegance, and their large twinkling eyes. I envy the dung beetles for their unique work environment, active lifestyle and power to move a ball of dung many times its own size and weight.

Selecting and researching my destinations and finding the right local guides/drivers is time well spent. If I can stretch my resources, I prefer to travel on my own. That way, arguments about how much time to spend with which wild animal in what location and at which angle to position the vehicle are mostly avoided. Having space around you and feeling relaxed with yourself and your driver/guide, you’ll become infinitely more productive. If you have to cut corners like most of us do, try camping instead of using lodges and go to the outlying areas of the various parks. Experiment with a freelance guide who doubles up as a driver.

LP: Do you have a favourite location you’ve photographed? What makes it special?

KM: As a teenager I strongly believed that the next best places for me (after Switzerland) were the Arctic and Antarctic biomes. At 18, my first ‘long’ journey was, as a member of a mountaineering expedition, to the north of Norway. I always felt that I ‘belonged’ when I was climbing mountains in Norway, photographing polar bears on Svalbard, eating with the Greenlanders after admiring their amazing icebergs and landscapes or flying in a 4-seater plane from Vancouver to Alaska and around Mt Denali, or idling around the old gold mining camps of the Yukon.

My wonderful family life apart, if I had to pick a highlight of my time as a photographer, it would be the few private flights that I undertook in 4-seater planes above the French/Swiss Alps, looking down on North America, enjoying the sand dunes of the Namib desert and, more than anything else, above the superlative volcanic landscapes of Iceland. There were helicopter flights too, above Lake Magadi in Kenya, South Island in NZ and in a large air force helicopter in Switzerland.

LP: What is your go-to camera kit when out in the field?

KM: I use a Nikon D810. The Nikon service engineer assured me that he had never serviced a camera with anywhere near as much desert sand as mine. Combined with the 70-200mm F/2.8 lens, it is my favourite setup. This lens is so good and so versatile. However, the time is well past that I should seek a new favourite amongst the mirrorless options.

LP: What advice would you give someone who wants to start out photographing wildlife and travel imagery?

KM: My native language being Swiss-German, I had to learn English as a second language. Today I would attempt to become an excellent speaker and essay writer in English early in life. Whatever the future may hold, today writing combines perfectly with photography. Staging your own exhibitions to help sell your images and doing presentations provide great feedback and sometimes enchanting experiences.

Photography can be as inspiring for you as it is for me. It’s a voyage of self-discovery and exploration of the magnificence and majesty of our amazing planet. You are the driving force. If I were restarting, I would probably focus on Greenland, Iceland, Alaska and the Arctic wildlife with special focus on the polar bear, the narwhal, the beluga and the long-living Greenland whale.
It would be a worthy challenge, but the process would also put you in that special category of mankind that Oscar Wilde defined in this quote: “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist; that is all.”

We hope you enjoyed reading about Kurt’s journey through photography and hopefully you feel inspired to get out in nature and capture your own wildlife and travel images.
You can see more of Kurt’s work on 17�Թ����� here and on his website
Be sure to come back next month to see who’s next for our Instagram Spotlight feature.