Paddy Booth is a surfer, award winning nature photographer, activist, storyteller, educator and environmentalist. A self taught photographer who devotes his life to nature by capturing moving images that speaks to the raw essence and beauty of this planet we are so privileged to call home.
Born in 1972 on the Cocos Keeling Islands, a remote Australian territory in the Indian Ocean, Paddy’s family later settled in the Sunshine Coast hinterland after first surviving Cyclone Tracy in Darwin 1974. The intense beauty and wildlife of these locations sparked his love of nature from a young age and with the encouragement of his recently late father Pat senior, a talented photographer in his own right, motivated Paddy in his developmental years to travel with some sort of camera when he started travelling and living abroad. He began to take it a bit more seriously from 2014 onward and started capturing birds in their natural habitat before moving on to add unique landscapes, botanicals and surf photography to his portfolio.
His distinctive style of visual storytelling and fresh take on nature has been favourably noted by national and international industry professional judges with his works having made the shortlists of several major national awards just about every year since 2018. His awards are listed in the bottom half of this page as you scroll down.
A veteran surfer and seasoned traveller, Paddy now divides his time between living on his boat in Northern NSW and adventuring both here in Australia and abroad to further build on his already substantial catalogue. Working and living on the water most of the time means being surrounded with the constantly changing and subtle nuances of nature, with water being in his opinion one of the most dynamic mediums in the world of photography.
One of Paddy’s primary aims is to ensure his work draws attention to the need to conserve our natural environment for future generations. This involves focusing on the most pressing environmental issue of the modern age, which is human caused Climate Change and the consequent Anthropocene (mass extinction) if we don’t take further immediate steps to limit warming to 1.5°C in the decades to come. This existential threat to humanity is what drives Paddy to continue living off grid until the Australian government can power the grid from 100% renewable energy. Another important part of Paddy’s work is educating people about the need to start drastically reducing the mining and selling of coal, gas and oil as this makes Australia one of the biggest polluters and producers of greenhouse gases globally. A more recent focus of his, has been emphasising the importance of also ending our addiction to plastic’s made from oil, which has impacted almost every ecosystem and entered the food webs of just about every living thing on the planet including us.
His website and Instagram provides further insight into his artistic talents and activism. The platforms provide an outlet where he shares his love of nature and the importance of protecting it, while also providing the opportunity for people to purchase his work on the web as well as at various markets and festivals in northern New South Wales.
Paddy believes that by showcasing the beauty of our natural environment in turn helps communicate the conservation message around the world. His services has now extended to private birding tours and expeditions to help raise awareness, as this encourages a more thought provoking respect for nature and the need to nurture and preserve the environment at all costs.
