HE is best known as a guitar virtuoso, but Nick Raschke is also a budding photographer who has just released a 2018 calendar featuring his own wildlife images captured around the Hunter.
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Raschke is a man of many passions. From the age of 11 he was obsessed with guitar. It would become a lifelong pursuit for the 50-year-old Milestones guitarist.
About 20 years ago he developed a new passion. This time it was rock climbing and hiking. The pursuit saw him climbing and hiking every spare moment he had.
More recently he has been overcome with a desire to kayak, almost everyday. And while he is out there paddling through the water he takes photos of the wildlife he encounters.
“I’m about 24 months into it,” Raschke said.
“A friend who had been asked out for a day on a kayak sent me a photo.
“It was like a light going on in my head, I thought ‘I’ve gotta do that.’”
“I started carrying on about it, and my missus was sick of me going on about it.”
He bought a kayak and ever since has been taking to the water at least three times a week.
Each day while out on the water he takes between 80 and 100 images, mostly of birds, on his Canon camera.
He then uploads the images to his Facebook page where they are viewed by hundreds of people every day.
“I try not to shoot on burst,” he said. “I try to take each photograph, but usually I am waiting for the right moment.”
However, for Raschke the camera is not just about capturing the natural beauty he encounters while out on the water. There is a message behind the images.
“The point of the photographs is to remind people the world isn’t just all human structures and people,” he said.
“It’s like gorilla environmentalism. It’s like propaganda, trying to get into the back of people’s heads there are other creatures apart from us.”
Raschke is no fan of Photoshop, preferring to share his images raw.
“I don’t Photoshop anything at all. I want it to look just like what I see,” he said.
“Some people are just a little bit too obsessed with Photoshop.”
“There are two schools of photography.
“One is someone who took a photo, the other is someone who spent six hours editing a photo.”
Raschke has now released a 2018 calander featuring the images of birds taken over the past six months in locations around the harbour, Cockle Creek and Pulbah Island.
The Nick Raschke 2018 photographic calendar can be purchased via Raschke’s Facebook Page.
The calendars are selling for $30 each.
