“Your best photo is your next photo”: Inside an Apollo Bay snapper’s pursuit of the moment

In this Q&A with the West Vic Brolga, Great Ocean Photography’s Amber Noseda talks about how she learned the trade, what keeps her chasing the perfect image, and why sometimes the most powerful moment is the one you don’t capture.

Q: How did you become a photographer? 

A: I started about nine years ago - I was a real estate agent, and the company I was working for at the time wanted a real estate photographer.  

Q: How does photography fit into your life these days?

A: Landscape photography and bird photography is a hobby. I also work for AFL Barwon in Geelong and take photos for different clubs. 

I love the fact that you're telling a story to the parents, to the town and to the club, and when I'm long gone, my photos will still keep on going. 

As a young child through to seniors, there's a photographic journey of your sporting history told through my lens. 

Q: What do you enjoy about nature and bird photography?

A: I'm fairly busy with work and lifestyle. Instead of going to yoga, doing something that's therapeutic is going out into the bush and being in nature.

To do bird photography, you have to be very quiet, and you're going to places that aren't populated, so it's a really calming environment. 

Q: What makes this area especially good for photography?

A: Around Apollo Bay there's so many different varieties of photography. You can be deep into the Otways and capture amazing waterfalls, then a half an hour later, you can be down on the beach, photographing the surfers. 

Even the Twelve Apostles, which has got some amazing rock formations, is only an hour and 15 minutes down the road. 

Q: Is there a particular image that you're especially proud of, or one that was particularly hard to capture?

A: I take photos of the puffins over on Skellig Michael, an island off the coast of County Kerry [in Ireland]. 

To get to the puffins, you've got to get onto the island itself and climb up all the crags to get into the spot where the puffins are, and generally they're nesting, or they've got little burrows. 

Q: Is there a photo you’ve tried to take for years and never captured?  

A: The puffins, with small fish in their beak when they're feeding their young. I'd love to capture that … [it] gives me the drive to keep on going back there. 

With photography, everybody says, ‘What's your best photo?’, but the best photo is the next photo.

Q: Have you ever decided not to take a photo for any reason?

A: I was going down to Aire River, and I saw a sea eagle and a wedge-tailed eagle fighting mid-air above the Aire River itself, and they were tumbling down towards the water. 

I was trying to get my camera out of my backpack to take a photo, and I was struggling.

I didn't catch it on camera, but it was just spectacular to watch. That's etched in my memory forever. Sometimes you don't need to take a photo, just by watching it yourself, it gives you enough happiness. 

Q: Anything you’d like to finish with?

A: You can get some amazing photos just with an iPhone. Don't just stand at eye level, squat down and take photos lower down or higher up, and you'll get a different perspective.