When Rebecca Larkan from Bothasig, a home-schooling Grade 9 learner, started her photography account “Larkan Lion Photography” on Instagram near the end of 2020, she received quite a bit of positive feedback about her photos from other photographers.
“I have always been keen on taking photos, but when I was younger that just meant ‘borrowing’ my parent’s phones to take blurry pictures of the plants in our back yard. They ended up giving me my own little camera, a purple Nikon, which I delighted in using for a few years. But during lockdown in 2020, I became a lot more interested in photography, using my dad’s Nikon P900 to take pictures of the birds and plants in our back yard. He also loves birding and photography and has passed that on to me,” Rebecca says.
Since then she has been on lots of adventures all over South Africa looking for new birds and animals to photograph and different landscapes to capture.
“I can’t remember my first photo, although it might have been an image I took of my mom’s old cell phone, but all you can see is a blurry dot in the corner, representing a flying pigeon. Since my childhood there was a huge improvement in my photos. I recently took the pictures at the Toy Drive of Girl Guides Cape West and since my account on Instagram, the feedback from other photographers is very encouraging,” she says.
The other platform she uses to identify wildlife and plants she has seen is iNaturalist.
“I started using this app during the City Nature Challenge last year. Although I am still at school I hope one day to make a living from photography. Many people think there are no business or job opportunities in this field, but you don’t realise how much of photography and videography is involved in our daily lives.
“After being on Instagram for a year, I discovered and became a member of the Young Wildlife Photographers of South Africa, a platform for young people aged 8 to 25 years to get to know one another, share advice and tips. It is really inspirational seeing their photos and achievements and hearing their travel stories. My favourite hobby is birdwatching. There are lots of great places around Cape Town where you can go birding. I am part of the Tygerberg Bird Club and I have really enjoyed going on outings with them,” Rebecca says.
Her favourite genre of photography is wildlife photography as she loves capturing the amazing birds and animals of our country.
“It seems that I have influenced my mother Julie because she has recently become interested in birds, too. After holidays, I always make a video of our trip to show family and friends, just for fun. Video editing and videography are two more things I really enjoy. I’m still learning how to use the editing programmes. Hopefully when I to go into photography full time, I’ll know everything to make a success of a career in photography or videography,” she says.
