Q&A with photographer Heinrich van den Berg

By Roxanne Reid
A bout of cerebral malaria 18 years ago made Heinrich van den Berg reconsider his life as a civil engineer and decide to live his passion – photography. Now, with some 20 photography books already published, he’s bringing out a new one called Reflection. It’s a deeply personal book in which, he says, he has used ‘something deeper inside me than just sight, hearing and touch’. In this Q&A with photographer Heinrich van den Berg, he shares some insights and some of the photos from the book.

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You've published some 20 books of wildlife and nature photographs. What makes your book Reflection different?
HvdB: I’ve done various different kinds of book, including guide books, photographic mementoes and books on tourism destinations. But three were from the heart. With Art of Nature I focused on the elements of art, and in Shades of Nature I printed the book in black and white. For Reflection I wanted to go a step or two further.

The theme of the book is change. I’ve just become a father, and change is a theme that has run through my life recently. Photography is also changing with the advances of technology, as well as book publishing. Natural places and species are under severe threat and in constant change. So I incorporated the change theme with text and visual elements – the book develops from pure black and white, to warm black and white, to sepia, and then to all the colours of the rainbow, starting with violet and ending with red. By doing this I could change the mood throughout the book, and take the reader on a visual safari through the wonderful natural world that surrounds us. I printed the book with eight colour inks instead of four, which created beautiful contrast. 

I photographed this white rhino in Tala Private Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Rhinos in South Africa are being poached at an alarming rate. Last year more than 1000 rhinos were killed for their horns. With this image I was lucky to capture the rhino with egrets flying around its head. They seem to form a halo around the animal as if it were a saint. This image was taken a few years ago. Tragically, this year this rhino was killed and its horn cut off.

The captions are unusual in that they reflect your private thoughts and reflections. Tell us why you wanted to share these personal insights.
HvdB: So many books feature image captions as afterthoughts. I wanted to spend as much time and effort in creating captions as possible. They took me months to write, even though they’re short. I’ve been a full-time wildlife photographer for 16 years, and after all that time I wanted to share more than just images. Good images are a reflection of the photographer, and I wanted to allow the reader into that connection between the mind and the photo.

Some photos are colour and some black and white or sepia. What governs your decision about which medium to use?
HvdB: The kind of image that works in black and white or sepia is totally different from one that works in colour. For black and white you need contrast, texture, side-lighting and most importantly a connection with the subject. With black and white, the reader is immediately given a glimpse into the ‘soul’ of the animal; colour tends to mask many things, and too much reality can block emotion. I found that by removing colour from the images, I managed to add another dimension to them, giving them more meaning.

When going on safari in a game drive vehicle, people are always grabbing their biggest lenses first, to get the close-up of an animal. But by zooming out with a wide angle lens, you can actually get much more interesting images, like this pride of lions drinking at the waterhole after they had made a kill. They always drink after they feed, so it’s a good idea to keep that in mind; predicting what an animal will do next is the most important aspect of successful photography.

You shoot nature in all its forms, from wildlife to trees and landscapes. Do you have a particular preference and why?
HvdB: I don’t have a preference. I love photography and everything about it. I love the wild and everything about it. So I photograph everything wild.

Please share some of your favourite photos from the book and tell us some back story and why those photos are so special to you.

Elephants are incredible creatures. To see them in the wild is exhilarating, but to be able to get very close to them is even more fulfilling. In southern Africa there are a few hides and places where it’s possible to get very close to elephants. Two of them are Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana where they have an underground hide, and Elephant Sands in Botswana where there’s a drinking place for elephants right next to the restaurant.

I grew up in Pietermaritzburg, and there was small plantation of trees next to the highway where we often went to photograph egrets. A few years ago I went back to this place and found that because of a shopping mall, all but one of the trees had been cut down. And in this tree all the remaining birds were roosting every night. I visualised the image I wanted to take, and returned at dusk when the birds came to roost. I set up my tripod and used a 30-second exposure so the birds would blur in the sky while creating interesting shapes with their wings. For me this image is of the ghosts of the birds that used to be there when I was young.

I don’t really photograph birds in flight - there are many really good bird photographers who specialise in that. But I do enjoy it sometimes. This image was taken at the Walter Sisulu Botanical gardens in Johannesburg. To me it was a perfect image with a clear concept and good balance.

We went to Kruger National Park a few years ago, and spent a lot of time on the bridge crossing the Crocodile River outside Malelane. We photographed birds from above and got really good images. The only problem is that after the trip I accidentally erased all the images of the trip. This was the only image that survived, because it was locked on the camera. So I used it in memory of all the other ones I lost.

I love Madagascar and all its creatures, although the Sifaka is the most beautiful to me. They are lemur royalty. Their call is one of the most beautifully haunting sounds I’ve ever heard. I tried various techniques, but the best image was taken with a slow shutter speed and a fill-in flash. The image was chosen as a highly commended image at the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards, but what makes it special to me is that I took it on the morning of my 40th birthday.

On the western dry side of Madagascar you find many baobabs. The most famous of these are a collection of baobabs alongside a dirt road. It’s one of the most photogenic places I’ve been. We only had one afternoon, but fortunately there were huge storm clouds forming on the horizon and the colour in the sky was as pink as it gets.