Self-taught wildlife photographer Paul Brennan to be featured in Crescendo: a Symphonic Celebration of Washington Landscape
A family of raccoons was feeding about 25 feet off Paul Brennan’s deck in Sudden Valley one morning last October. One of them then climbed up a maple and simply sat there rubbing its belly. Brennan captured the moment.
“I think it was one of the boys in the family. It just had this human-like quality,” he said.
That image will be one of four of Brennan’s pictures to be featured in Crescendo: a Symphonic Celebration of Washington Landscape on April 26 in Seattle. The event will be the third of its kind organized by the Washington Trail Association.
A spokesperson for the association, Victoria Obermeyer, said Brennan’s work was chosen because “his winning forest shot captures the feeling of enjoying the peace of a quiet moment on trail.” The images will accompany a performance of nature inspired music by the Northwest Symphony Orchestra. The money will go to the Washington Trail Association to help maintain the trails and the orchestra, especially toward support for composers in the Pacific Northwest.
“The power of photography can’t be overstated in the work we do at WTA,” she added, “and photos help us show just how incredible Washington’s landscapes and the wildlife within them are.”
The raccoon was one of five photographs Brennan submitted to the Northwest Exposure Photo Contest. “I didn’t expect to win,” said the self-taught wildlife photographer. “I don’t go out with the intent of capturing certain images. The secret to wildlife photography is simply to take lots of pictures. Most of the time it is a matter of luck. But we live in a part of the world where the wildlife is so vibrant yet calm that you don’t need much stealthiness to photograph them.”.
The lakes and trails in Whatcom and Skagit inspire Brennan. He loves the moodiness of the fog in the forests.
“I walk around Stimpson in the fall and the fog is kind of like a tunnel that draws you into the woods. These big, old trees, some of them dead, they encroach you,” he said.
Through his lens, he sees waterfalls cascading over mossy rocks, deer tiptoeing through the ferns and banana slugs laying their slime trails. Brennan’s preference for a dark style gives his images a fairytale-like quality.
Brennan kind of stumbled into photography. Originally from the U.K., he started bird watching at age 8. A decade ago when he was in his 20s, one of his friends lent him a camera just so they could remember which birds they saw. Within a week, Brennan wanted to upgrade his photographic equipment. From there, he moved on to DSLR and nowadays a mirrorless camera.
“Your eyes see a lot more than the camera can. I try to minimize the editing and mainly try to produce images close to what I saw,” he said.
As the cast of local birds emerges in spring, Brennan’s collection of images expands to include a chickadee perched on a cedar, a rufous hummingbird enjoying the sun, and of course, many more on display in the state’s iconic cherry blossoms. Brennan is a frequent contributor to Audubon Washington.
“Photography is a tool for conservation, education and ethical bird appreciation,” said an Audubon Washington spokesperson. “At Audubon Washington, we use compelling imagery to connect birds to people.”
For Brennan, photography has always been a hobby. He studied law at college, decided he didn’t want to be a lawyer, and worked for the Department of Work and Pensions in the U.K., identifying fraud and helping ex-prisoners get back on the right track. In 2018, he and three friends quit their jobs, bought a $5,000 car and drove from the U.K. to South Africa.
“I think I saw about 600 species of animals during those six months, from wolves in Ethiopia to elephants in Kenya and birds of every kind,” he recalled.
While travelling through Rwanda on that same trip, he also met his wife. She is from Kent. When COVID-19 hit, they could not see each other for months. Working at the Department of Work and Pensions was, well, just not the same. That’s how Brennan ended up in Sudden Valley.
Nowadays, Brannan is a stay-at-home dad for his two grade school kids. He tries to fit his photography walks in between the school runs and cookie baking.
“I think we are so fortunate to live in a place where the changes of the seasons are so stark,” he said. “It took a lot of fiddling around with the camera to figure out how to give the ferns and the moss the depth of color they have in photos.” But once he did, Brennan was mesmerized.
—By Jenny Lam
Jenny Lam volunteers for KMRE news and teaches part time at Western Washington
University. Originally from Hong Kong, she taught journalism there for more than 12
years and was a broadcast journalist for more than 23 years both in Hong Kong and
the U.K.