The Art of Noticing: what photography has taught me about nature

Source: NZ Department of Conservation

Olivia Wentzell was the winner of the Landscape Category in the 2025 New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year. She studied zoology and environmental science at the University of Auckland. 

Photography was an integral part of my childhood. Going outside with my dad and his camera is where it all started. Holding a clunky DSLR and snapping photos regardless of the camera’s settings sparked a love for photography that has never wavered.

As a university student, my time often involves a lot of studying, staying inside with my eyes glued to a screen. But as a nature-lover at heart and photographer by choice, much of my spare time is spent naturing. It is the raw beauty of the landscapes and wildlife that I experience which endlessly inspires me to capture it, and it is the same beauty that inspires me every day to advocate for it.

Recently winning the landscape category in New Zealand Geographic’s 2025 Photographer of the Year has instilled an even greater drive to inspire others to experience the outdoors. As someone who grew up spending a lot of their spare time outside, and who now combines that with photography, I have grown to have a profound appreciation and respect for nature that I think we should all have. This love for the outdoors has only grown throughout my photography journey, where I have learnt many lessons over the years. It has taught me to appreciate nature, not just for its material value, but in experiences it provides, its profound beauty, and the true calm it can bring us. So, here are the five things that I have learnt along my photography journey that I think are essential for appreciating all that nature has to offer:

1. Take Notice of the Small Things

Many of us are guilty of only staring in awe at the megafauna when out naturing, but what about the small bugs that help to decompose leaf litter, or the fungi that creates mass networks underground, connecting all the trees in a forest. I have always been one to take notice of the under-appreciated, but photography has forced me to do so even more, as focusing on each detail in a photograph is essential to creating powerful images.

A detail for me that not many people notice is the lighting in a particular moment. Photography is all about light, so naturally I pay attention to it when I have my camera, but I also notice it everywhere I go, no matter the context. This means that I appreciate the soft sun rays filtering through the forest canopy, or the sunlight that just peaks over the horizon before it dips below for the night. This is one of the biggest lessons photography has taught me: the purity of light and the beauty it casts on moments.

There is nothing overly special about these photographs—or to you there may not be—but the lighting in each creates something even more beautiful out of relatively common species.

Noticing the small details in nature deepens our appreciation for it, ultimately allowing us to connect more with the world around us and find meaning in even the simplest moments. Each time you go outside, I encourage you to focus on one more thing that is new to you so that your admiration for nature can grow.

2. Get Out Whenever You Can

In the past, I wouldn’t take photos unless I felt sure they would work compositionally. However, my mindset has recently shifted to wanting to take photos of everything. This has motivated me to get outside even on the days where I don’t feel inspired, or visit the places that don’t seem as interesting as a weekend mission to Rangitoto or Muriwai Gannet Colony. Getting outside whenever possible connects us with nature more and leads us to notice the small things.

Three photos I have taken recently, where the aim was not to create a strong composition, but rather to bring my camera out and photograph freely. As a result, I noticed details that I initially would have overlooked, and found beauty in the unexpected.

Some of my best moments in nature have either been those I wasn’t planning, or in places where the beauty far exceeded my expectations. My winning photograph in New Zealand Geographic’s 2025 Photographer of the Year is an example of this. I was on a road trip around the South Island and visited a canyon I had been wanting to go to for a while. I never imagined it would become one of my favourite places in New Zealand, and the location of where an award-winning photograph was taken. While wading through knee-deep water at its entrance, I soon realised the beauty that Wilson Creek Canyon held. With water trickling down from above, moss covered walls, and sunlight streaming through the forest at the top of the canyon, this was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been – yet it was just a small, unassuming canyon off the side of State Highway 1.

My winning photo in the Landscape Category of New Zealand Geographic’s 2025 Photographer of the Year. It shows a patch of vegetation on a canyon wall, with water droplets surrounding it.

Just a few months later, I found myself in a similar situation when visiting Limestone Creek Reserve near Palmerston North. I visited this location for the glowworms but ended up seeing a different kind of beauty. This reserve included a limestone archway of a grand scale, with the most pristine native forest and a seemingly endless trickle of water down the walls of a narrow gully.

Limestone Creek Reserve was truly an unexpected beauty that blew me away.

Through appreciating the small things in nature by getting out whenever I can, these two moments are some of the best that I have ever experienced – and neither were set out to be.

3. Slow Down

Photography requires a lot of patience to achieve the photos you want, often with more failure than success. This patience is what taught me to slow down when in nature.

By learning to notice light as a photographer, watching sunsets has become one of my favourite things to do in nature. To me, this is a moment when everything is slowing down for the day. It is a moment where I can just sit, look, listen, and feel all that is around me. While watching a sunset, every moment seems to be better than the last, and I am forced to sit and watch until the painted sky slowly turns to stars.

Watching sunsets was one of the first ways I began to truly appreciate nature. Now it has taught me to slow down in other naturing activities as well. Whether I am looking at the trees in a forest on a day hike as they gently move with the breeze, or even just watching the lapping of waves on the coast, every moment in nature can be appreciated even more if we just slow down.

A photograph of a hummingbird I sat and watched for at least an hour—slowing down to understand its movements and admire its beauty.

4. Notice With More Than Just Your Eyes

During sunset, I can hear the quiet waves on the beach while the sun sets over the horizon. I can feel the slight breeze on my skin as a Tui flies over me. I don’t hear any cars on the highway or sounds of the city – just the quiet moment as the sun dips below the horizon. Through slowing down while watching sunsets, I have learnt to take in all that is around me. I have learnt to notice not just the beauty that I can see, but which I can hear, smell, and feel too.

Photography taught me to appreciate light, which in turn taught me to slow down and observe how lighting conditions change. This awareness has helped me pay closer attention to the small details in nature, using more than just my eyes. All these lessons are interconnected and essential for appreciating nature—not just for what it gives us, but for its profound beauty too.

Not only was the visual beauty of the red-crowned kākāriki so striking while visiting Tiritiri Matangi Island, but the calls of countless individuals within the flock were overwhelmingly beautiful.

5. Expand Your Knowledge On All Things Nature

As a zoology and environmental science graduate, I know a thing or two about taking on new knowledge about the natural world. As a photographer, I also want to learn as much as I can about the natural world to better understand my subjects. Before university, I thought I had a deep appreciation for the outdoors through learning in my own time, but studying all things nature throughout my degree allowed me to have a whole new appreciation for it. I now look at birds and know what makes each one of them special, and the role they play in maintaining ecosystem health. I look at the trees in a forest and know that each one took countless years to grow and sustains thousands of animals throughout its lifetime.

A kākā, whose beauty is made even more remarkable by knowing its conservation story and rarity of seeing one in the wild.

Developing my understanding of the natural world and how it works has been one of the most important shifts in how I now appreciate it. Now every time I go outside and see anything I have spent hours learning about, I can’t help but gawk at it like a fangirl, marvelling at its intricacies and unique beauty – unlike anything else in nature.

Final Thoughts

Nature is the one thing that connects us all. Despite our differences in passions, we all rely on nature and have access to it, so we need to learn to appreciate this unifying feature between us. So, when you next have the chance to get outside, take it—and remember to slow down, take notice of the small things, and learn more about the nature around you, because the best moments are often those that are unexpected.

MIL OSI