My Story
I’m Shelby, a UK-based wildlife photographer, filmmaker and content creator with a deep love for the natural world. Wildlife and nature have become the biggest passions in my life, taking me to incredible places, introducing me to amazing people and helping me discover a confidence and sense of purpose I never expected to find.
My photography journey began almost completely by chance in August 2023, when I picked up my dad’s old camera for the first time. I started by photographing anything around me that caught my attention, my cat, Kaala, the plants in the garden and small details in flowers that I had previously walked past without noticing. For the first time, carrying a camera encouraged me to slow down, look closer and see ordinary things in a completely different way.
Before wildlife photography fully took over, I became fascinated by aviation. I travelled to places such as RAF Lakenheath to photograph fast-moving military jets, learning how to track unpredictable subjects, react quickly and understand my camera under pressure. Throughout 2024, I divided my time between aviation and wildlife photography. I would head out on walks without much of a plan, photographing whatever animals, birds or landscapes I happened to find. But as the year continued, wildlife gradually became more than something I photographed, it became something I wanted to understand.
I became hooked on the search. There was something incredibly rewarding about learning where an animal might appear, reading the landscape and spending hours outside for a moment that could last only seconds. I became especially fascinated by animals that were more difficult to find and photograph, including muntjac deer and foxes. The uncertainty was part of what made it so exciting: you could walk for hours and see almost nothing, but then one unexpected encounter could make the entire day unforgettable.
Finding my voice in the Wild
In December 2024, I began my content-creation journey. I made a promise to myself that I would post every day and share the real stories behind my wildlife adventures, the successful mornings, the long waits, the missed opportunities and the photographs that made it all worthwhile.
I have lived with a stammer my entire life, and speaking confidently has never come naturally or easily. Public speaking was something I feared, and talking to a camera felt completely outside my comfort zone. But I didn’t begin sharing videos because I wanted popularity. I began because I wanted to challenge myself.
I started speaking to camera about my wildlife encounters and the photographs I had taken. At first, the videos received a small amount of attention, not huge numbers, but far more than I was used to. That gave me the encouragement to continue. With every video, speaking became slightly less frightening. I realised that when I was talking about wildlife, the excitement often became stronger than the fear.
Nature became somewhere I could feel calm, free and completely myself, and through sharing it, I began to find a voice I never knew I had.
As I continued documenting encounters with different animals and birds, the audience began to grow. People weren’t only responding to the finished photographs; they were becoming invested in the search, the fieldcraft, the emotions and the stories behind them. Something that had begun as a personal challenge was slowly becoming a community.
The encounter that began my love for owls
On 28 February 2025, I photographed my first-ever barn owl, a beautiful female that hunted three times that day. I was completely starstruck. Watching her effortless flight and almost ethereal hovering as she searched the ground for voles was unlike anything I had witnessed before.
She very quickly became my favourite bird.
That encounter sparked an obsession with owls. I realised just how difficult they could be to locate and photograph, which only made me more determined to find them in my own local area. I began spending more time learning their habitats, calls and behaviour, knowing that any success would have to come through patience rather than luck alone.
Around this time, several of my videos began performing particularly well on TikTok, and I was interviewed on BBC One by Felicity Baker, an inspirational news producer and reporter who also has a stammer and faces it courageously in her own career. Felicity had first interviewed me in 2021, so speaking with her again four years later felt incredibly meaningful.
This time, I was able to talk about my own stammer, the confidence I had gained from speaking online and the way being outside in nature had helped me. It was a real full-circle moment: something I had once found almost impossible had become part of the story I was sharing publicly.
A Year of unforgettable encounters
Throughout 2025, I experienced so many remarkable moments with foxes, deer and birds. During the summer, I saw my first live badger, and only a week after that first sighting, I captured an image that would change everything.
The photograph showed a badger running towards me through a crop field during golden hour, all four feet lifted from the ground. It became known as my “flying badger” image and went on to win the RSPCA Young Photographer of the Year 12–15 category.
It was one of those extremely rare moments where everything aligned: the animal’s movement, the evening light, my position and a split-second press of the shutter. For that brief moment, it felt as though time had frozen. I remain incredibly grateful not only for the photograph itself, but for the opportunities and experiences that followed because of it.
In September 2025, I travelled to the Isle of Mull, where I encountered animals I had never seen before, including otters, white-tailed eagles and hen harriers. Exploring its mountains, coastlines and wild landscapes left an enormous impression on me and began a lasting love for Scotland.
By the end of the year, I had also located an active barn owl nest in my local area. As winter turned towards 2026, I dedicated countless cold, late evenings to observing the area responsibly, learning the owls’ routines and patiently waiting for fleeting opportunities.
The Owl that changed everything
At the beginning of 2026, I experienced another full-circle moment when I found my first-ever roosting tawny owl, or perhaps, more accurately, when it found me.
I was walking through a part of the woodland that I rarely visited, scanning the thinner trees and looking for the thicker trunks where a sleeping tawny owl might blend into the bark. I decided to sit beside one of the trees and wait to see whether the blackbirds began alarm-calling.
The moment I sat down, I looked up.
In the tree directly in front of me was what appeared to be an unusually owl-shaped piece of bark. I slowly raised my camera, looked through the viewfinder, and there it was. A tawny owl was squinting back at me, beginning to wake before its evening hunt.
My reaction was completely raw. After spending so long searching, I could barely believe what I was seeing. The video of that encounter reached approximately 35 million views across my social channels, travelling to audiences around the world. It brought an extraordinary wave of kind comments, new followers and opportunities with brands, and became a genuinely life-changing moment in my career.
Fox cubs, red squirrels and a dream spring
In the spring, I travelled to Yorkshire in partnership with the Woodland Trust to photograph the beautiful red squirrels of Snaizeholme, one of my all-time favourite animals.
On the journey home, I received a trail-camera notification showing fox cubs outside a den for the first time. I carefully studied the area and put my fieldcraft into practice, making sure I could photograph them ethically without affecting their natural behaviour.
Across several weeks, I spent around 40 hours waiting inside a small pop-up hide. For much of that time, I saw very little. But when the cubs finally appeared among the bluebells, the hours of patience instantly became worthwhile. Photographing wild fox cubs surrounded by spring flowers had been a dream of mine, and the images remain some of my favourites.
I thought that spring could not possibly become any more special, but after more than two years of searching, I found a tawny owl nest.
One evening, while returning from looking for badgers, I heard the unmistakable kissing call of a young tawny owl. I returned at 4:30 the following morning and spent hours searching without success. Eventually, I walked further into the woodland towards an area where I had recently heard adult owls calling.
Then I heard that sound again.
Looking up, I discovered a different nest containing four tawny owlets, all bobbing their heads and staring directly at me as the morning light reached their faces. I spent hours there each day during the following week, watching the owlets fledge, begin branching through the nearby trees and gradually explore the woodland around them.
Learning their behaviour was fascinating. During the day, they could sit completely silently and disappear into the branches, making every successful sighting feel like solving a puzzle. That experience taught me an enormous amount about locating, observing and photographing tawny owls responsibly.
Soon afterwards, I spent several days with one of my greatest inspirations, Brooke Haycock. Together, we searched for tawny owlets and enjoyed some amazing success. During that same trip to Sussex, I also found a young tawny owl close to the cottage where I was staying. Finding and photographing it in an unfamiliar area felt like a real test of everything I had learned. Capturing one of my favourite tawny owl photographs at five o’clock in the morning was an incredibly proud moment.
Stepping outside my comfort zone
The first half of 2026 alone was packed with more wildlife encounters and opportunities than I could ever have imagined. I feel incredibly privileged to have witnessed these animals, learned from their behaviour and captured photographs that mean so much to me.
In July, I took on a very different challenge when I travelled with my great friend James, better known as Wildlife with Cookie, to swim with sharks in the waters between Wales and Ireland.
Deep water has never been something I have felt particularly comfortable around. But the past few years have developed into a pattern of stepping into situations that feel uncomfortable, nerve-racking and exciting, and coming away feeling more alive than before. Swimming with sharks was perhaps the clearest example yet.
Photography has taught me that the moments which frighten or challenge us can often become the ones we are proudest of. Whether that means speaking to a camera, sitting alone in a dark woodland, waiting unseen beside a fox den or entering deep water with sharks below, each experience has pushed me slightly further beyond the person I once believed I could be.
Looking ahead
What began with my dad’s old camera and a few photographs of my cat has grown into something I could never have predicted. Wildlife photography has given me a passion, a career, a community and, most importantly, a voice.
None of this journey would have been possible without the support of my family and friends, the photographers and filmmakers who have inspired me, the people who follow and encourage my work, and the brands and organisations that have trusted me to tell meaningful stories.
I am incredibly grateful for every encounter, every opportunity and every person I have met along the way. There is still so much wildlife I hope to see, so much I want to learn and so many stories waiting to be told.
And honestly, I feel as though I am only just getting started.
