As The Winchester Photographic Society exhibition 2025 is approaching its final week at The Arc, Winchester, we spoke to Michael Lane, this year’s winner of the nature category. In this article, Michael talks to us about his photography, competitions and club membership.
How did you get into photography?
I started when I was about 14, and it just seemed like something I’d like to try. They were very simple cameras in those days unless you had a bit of money. I had my own basic little dark room and started dabbling. That is how I started - just photographing everything and anything to see what sort of picture I’d get - with no idea how to do anything.
Your work Fish Eagle Shares Its Food won the category of Nature. Please could you tell us more about capturing this shot.
It’s an interesting shot because it’s not a portrait of two birds. It shows a bit of animal behaviour, which is interesting because the eagle is quite capable of causing harm to the crow-like bird, called a Karusu in Japanese. But at that moment, because there is enough food, the eagle is prepared to allow the Karusu to take a bit, which is interesting behaviour.
But I'm interested in technical photography, so action photography is the sort of thing that I prefer - rather than landscapes and other things. It's just a personal thing and, as it happens, wildlife fulfils all of that. You can get action pictures of animals and, on top of that, I have a natural liking for nature, like a lot of us do.
I don’t think I have the artistic eye for other types of photography. I can do landscapes, but I’m not a great landscape photographer. Some people are fantastic - they have an eye for what’s going to happen and a lot of patience. I have a lot of patience for nature, but I don’t know that I’d want to sit waiting - you know - revisiting places multiple times just for the right light to come up. I can see why they do it though because of the results.
We were in Greece on one occasion photographing Dalmatian pelicans, the biggest pelicans in the world. The sun was behind the clouds, and I had a picture in mind. What I wanted to photograph, if I was lucky enough, was a sunbeam coming out of the clouds, and if I was lucky and timed it right, I wanted it to be coming down on the pelican flying past. I practised panning and getting the pelican right. And then it happened - the sun broke through, and I got it coming through the pelican's head as it flew past. The pelican decided to bank into me, so the wings spread out as it turned. It was almost the perfect set-up.
Why should someone join a photography club?
In the old days, there were limited ways to learn photography. Now you can go on YouTube and see hundreds of people who will tell you how to set your exposure and all sorts of things. It is perfectly possible for you to use YouTube to teach yourself photography.
But the trouble with that is that it makes you a solitary photographer. The fun of photography is being part of a group, and you actually learn faster. If I don’t know something, I have plenty of people in the club I can ask. It is a collective way of learning.
It is hard to tell if you are improving if you do not join a club. You have to enter competitions. We don’t always win; there are good photographers in Winchester. We are all vying to win.
We also enter lots of external competitions all over the world. If you went back to say fifteen years ago, we were quite unsuccessful, but you learn as you go. Eventually, we got to the stage where both of us regularly win awards up to gold medals. You receive immediate feedback from qualified judges.
A club is a good thing where you’ll get proper support from people who want to encourage you to do well.
Mike Lane’s other exhibition entries involve brilliant combinations of action and chance.
The Winchester Photographic Society 2025 exhibition is open until the 13 July. Find out more here.
