I was born in Johannesburg. My wife Jenny was born in the then Salisbury, Rhodesia and we emigrated to Australia in 1989. I trained as a geologist, but morphed into the mine site environmental guy when working up in Central Queensland. From there, I worked in the MIM (Mount Isa Mines) head office and then consulted to mining companies specialising in environmental auditing, sustainability reporting, data gathering and analysis
My most interesting shot taken during this time is probably this aerial shot of the Grasberg copper/gold mine on the island of New Guinea (Papua province of Indonesia). Grasberg is the biggest gold mine and second biggest copper mine in the world and is 4,270 metres above sea level. A small glacier is situated adjacent to the mine along the ridge line.
Grasberg by Nick Lefebvre
Pets: We don’t currently have any pets as we still intend to travel once it’s safe post Covid. Our last pet, Keea, was a fox terrier. We have although, house-sat a number of other people’s pets and farm animals in the last five years. This menagerie ranged from cats in Devon, an Airedale in a small village in Scotland, a collie, horse, chickens, goats and two grouchy alpacas in Milton NSW, two collies in Bray, Ireland and dogs and cats in Christchurch NZ, including these two:
Nick and Jenny’s ‘house sitting’ pets, above and below.
What gear do you shoot with? My dad was a Nikon man and although I flirted with other film camera makes, I now have two full frame Nikons, the D600 and the D750. I have the Nikon 24-120mm, Nikon 70-200 vr 2 and a Tokina 100mm portrait/macro lenses as well as a 1.4 x converter.
The earliest pictures taken by me, that I still have, were from the mid-seventies, but I only became really interested in photography when I bought my first DSLR (a Nikon D80) in 2005.
Preferred style of photography: Probably better to ask what I don’t really prefer which would be still life and macros otherwise I’ll shoot anything that interests me. We recently travelled extensively overseas and in Australia and thus I have many landscapes, architectural, travel, events, street and candid shots. Since we have settled back in Brisbane I have been keen on improving my portraits, learning a lot during Gaye’s excellent portrait shoots and also looking around for good value or free (TFP) modeling shoots in Brisbane. I am keen to try astro photography when I am next away from ambient light. Thus, I am not sure what my style is, I will leave that to others to decide.
A shot by Nick, taken recently on a photo shoot in the Valley, Brisbane.
Editing and Internet: I edit mostly in Lightroom Classic, occasionally dropping into Photoshop to try a few things that I’ve learnt along the way.
I have some of my pictures on 500px, Viewbug and Instagram (@nicklef99) and occasionally challenge other photographers on Gurushots.
Best holiday: I was retrenched in 2013 and couldn’t find a job, so after gloomily observing the other grey hairs sitting around Kenmore Village doing nothing, and contemplating a similar fate, I proposed to Jenny that we sell the house and car, put our furniture in storage, and travel as cheaply as possible (in part through house-sitting).
She nervously agreed and we started in South Africa and then camped for six weeks in Namibia. Jen wanted to look for poppies in Tuscany so we went there. We spent time in England, Scotland and Ireland then flew to Vancouver going inland to stay with friends in Kalowna. They lent us their vehicle to drive through the magnificent Jasper-Banff National park and on to Calgary. We flew back to Lisbon and drove, (carefully, on the wrong side of the road for me) for six weeks around Portugal and then repeated the exercise in Spain. After flying home to Brisbane, we explored New Zealand for three months and then spent time in Victoria and NSW
If you are bored being ‘locked down’ and feel like following our adventure I have a photoblog (not too many words) of the trip. Jenny occasionally contributed.
If you decide to have a look: To start you need to make your way to the bottom of the main page using the older posts link at the bottom of the page until you get to Melbourne where we started. Use the next post link at the bottom of an individual post to navigate to the next post
https://nickbrisbane.zenfolio.com/blog
Favourite song: I am a 60’s tragic and there are many great songs from that decade that I love but I’ll choose Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross as it invokes memories of many beach holidays at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXeKi6ZkbOw
I have a 2020 favourite song that I think most will like - so if you haven't been to Africa, time to go when you can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qlx6D2E1UA
Favourite meal: My favourite meals are probably crispy chicken wings (Jenny's speciality) or lamb chops (pretty basic!). I’d start the evening with Droewors with a cold beer (Droewors is dried thin sausage, an Afrikaans staple).
Favourite image from another member: I like two of Ray Shorter’s many great shots. The play of light on the landscape in both images is just excellent.
‘Storm Over Grand Canyon’ by Ray Shorter.
‘Neist Point Lighthouse’ by Ray Shorter.
Favourite Image of My Own: Southern Namibia blew me away with rolling deserts, mountain ranges and silence. There are very few people in the south of the country and I couldn’t get enough of it. This picture captures what I feel for the place; deserted, silent and peaceful.
Nick’s favourite image of his own, taken in beautiful Sothern Namibia.
What am I doing during lockdown: I seem to be doing a lot more about the house than I have ever done before! I’m not really motivated to take many photos but I am learning more editing tricks and editing the photos taken during our Australian travels. Plus, as I learn more about editing I realise I’ll have to go back and start at the beginning, re-editing photos and finding pictures that I originally discarded.
Nick at home.