Wild Wolves of the Taiga Forest Workshop Report August 2026

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In August 2026, I ran my semi-annual workshop in Finland to photograph wild wolves, brown bears and wolverines in the remote Taiga forests of northern Finland. This is a workshop I have been running for many years now, and is always one I look forward to. Finland remains one of the most underrated destinations for wildlife in my experience and always offers very special encounters. Our workshop ran for 8 days / 7 nights from August 1st until August 8th, with the group spending the week photographing from a series of private wildlife hides. We also had an extensive post-production seminar at the conclusion of the worskhop.

This region of Finland is one of the few places in the world where you can reliably photograph both wild wolves and brown bears in their natural Taiga forest habitat. The setting provides an extraordinary photographic environment, with dense coniferous forest, mist, low evening light and the possibility of unexpected encounters at any time.

At this time of the year, the sun is setting around 10pm, and the wildlife is most active in the evenings. As such, we spent our time in the hides between 4pm and 10pm each evening. We were fortunate this year to have some significant rain during the workshop, which made for really moody, atmospheric photographs.

Over the course of the week, we had photographic encounters with more than half a dozen individual brown bears and at least four different wolves. As always, it is important to emphasise that these are genuinely wild animals. They are completely free to come and go as they please, and there are no guarantees of sightings. The unpredictability of these encounters is an important part of what makes photographing them so rewarding. Every appearance is on the animal’s terms, and patience is essential.

The private hides provided excellent opportunities to work at close range while remaining unobtrusive to the wildlife. This allowed us to concentrate on behaviour, interaction and environmental portraits rather than simply recording sightings. The long hours spent quietly waiting in the hides were repeatedly rewarded with memorable encounters. One such encounter was with a white-tailed eagle that landed in the grass directly in front of my hide position, facilitating the opportunity to capture it as it took off into the wind.

The changing light of the northern summer also provided a wonderful range of photographic conditions. The extended daylight hours allowed us to continue working late into the evening, while the atmospheric conditions of the Taiga created opportunities for images with a strong sense of place. This area of Finland is truly virgin forest that provides for opportunites that extend beyond the wildlife.

For the duration of the workshop, we stayed at a nearby, comfortable hotel with modern amenities. This provided a welcome base between photographic sessions and made it possible to concentrate fully on the wildlife and photography throughout the week. Typically, I recommend longer telephoto lenses for this workshop (500mm and 600mm are ideal), but it is always worth keeping something shorter handy as there are times the wildlife approaches quite close to the hides. My preference is always to photograph with two cameras – one with a 600mm lens and a 2nd with a mid-range to telephoto such as a 100-300mm lens.

Once again, Finland’s Taiga delivered an outstanding week of wild wolf, and bear photography. With multiple wolf encounters and more than half a dozen bears, as well as several eagle encounters, the August 2026 workshop provided an exceptional collection of wildlife encounters and photographic opportunities in one of Europe’s great wilderness environments.

We are returning again next year in both August and November for two more workshops to this wonderful region of Finland. The August trip is set up for optimal fall colour and our November trip is set to coincide with what should be arrival of the first snow. If you have ever wanted to photograph wild wolves and bears in a stunning forest setting, then this is absolutely the workshop for you. Places are already extremely limited on both trips, so please get in touch if you would like to join us.

Anthropic Settlement: $ 1.5 Billion for Copyright for Authors

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In some landmark photography-related news, as of July 20, 2026, a U.S. federal judge gave final approval to a $1.5 billion settlement between Anthropic and a class of authors and publishers. It is the largest known U.S. copyright settlement of its kind. And it hopefully paves the way for photographers (like myself) who have had their photographs used by Anthropic (and others) to train their A.I model without our consent.

The case, Bartz v. Anthropic, concerned Anthropic’s use of copyrighted books in developing its Claude AI models.

The important points to note:

  • Anthropic was not ordered to pay $1.5 billion in damages after a trial.
  • Anthropic agreed to a $1.5 billion class-action settlement, which the court has now approved.  
  • The underlying dispute involved roughly 482,000+ books whose copyright holders were eligible for compensation.
  • The settlement works out to roughly $3,000 per eligible work, before deductions for legal/administrative expenses.  
  • About 91% of the eligible works have been claimed.  

The really interesting part for AI and copyright and what this might mean for future cases: The court’s earlier ruling was actually quite favourable to Anthropic on AI training itself. The judge found that training Claude on legitimately obtained copyrighted books could constitute fair use. The problem was that Anthropic had also obtained millions of books from pirated sources, including LibGen and Pirate Library Mirror, and stored those copies. That was the copyright infringement problem.  So, in simplified terms:

“Training an AI on copyrighted books” wasn’t what produced the $1.5B liability.
“Obtaining and storing pirated copies of those books” was the much more serious problem.

Anthropic settled rather than taking the piracy issue to a potentially enormous damages trial. The settlement also avoids creating a binding appellate precedent on the broader AI-training question.  

And this is very current: just two days ago, another music publisher, Round Hill Music, filed a new lawsuit against Anthropic alleging unauthorised use of lyrics from hundreds of songs, potentially expanding to more than 10,000 compositions.  

What this could mean for photographers and AI companies using photographs to train models is unknown. Regardless, the Anthropic case has some interesting implications.

WNPP Episode 170 – Australian Professional Photographer of the Year 2026

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I have just published episode 170 of my Wild Nature Photography Podcast. In this episode, I discuss my results in the recent Australian Photographic Prize Awards and what it means to win the overall grand prize and title of Australian Professional Photographer of the Year. This is a deeper dive into my thoughts on the winning photographs, where and how they were taken, with what equipment and what my thought process was from capture to the final processed image. The photographs can be seen online HERE.

Australian Photographic Prize – Winner 2026 Australian Photographer of the Year

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Grand Prize Winner: Honestly humbled and feeling quite emotional — and still struggling to quite believe it — to have been named the Overall Winner of the 2026 Australian Photographic Prize. And the title of Australian Professional Photographer of the Year for 2026! I’m genuinely blown away.

With my entries this year, I was incredibly fortunate to receive two category-winning awards — Wildlife Category, with a clean sweep of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, and Birds Category, with 1st and 3rd places. Then winning the Living World Division with my photograph ‘Room with a Storm View’, before being awarded the overall title of Australian Professional Photographer of the Year 2026!

The photograph that ultimately won the overall title was taken in northern Iceland, featuring an Arctic fox in the middle of a winter storm. It is a photograph I had previsualised for a very long time. I knew the image I wanted to make, but it took four years of returning, waiting, searching and being patient before everything finally came together. When you spend so much time chasing a photograph that exists first in your imagination, finally seeing it come to life is incredibly special. Having that image recognised in this way makes it even more meaningful.

A huge thank you to everyone who makes the Australian Photographic Prize possible — the organisers, judges, sponsors and everyone working behind the scenes to create such an incredible platform for Australian and international photographers. It is a genuine privilege to be recognised alongside so many incredibly talented photographers who are producing an extraordinarily high standard of work. Looking through the finalists and winners this year, I was reminded just how much talent there is in Australian photography.

Congratulations to every finalist, category winner and fellow award recipient. There were some truly exceptional photographs. And, most importantly, thank you.

Thank you to everyone who has supported my photography over the years — those who follow my work, collect my images, join me on expeditions and workshops, encourage me, challenge me and continue to share in this incredible journey. After more than three decades of photographing wild places around the world, I’ve learned that the photographs that mean the most are rarely the easy ones. They are the photographs that demand patience, persistence, failure, return visits and sometimes years of waiting. This one certainly did.

To have that journey recognised in this way is something I will never take for granted. Thank you. Truly.

You can watch the full live-stream of the presentation and awards below:

The accumulation of points in this year’s Australian Photographic Prize also had me leapfrog the Affiliate category and jump straight to Laureate. You can read about the Laureate program HERE. I am quite a big fan of these type of programs as they encourage growth and a need to innovate in our photographic journey. I’ve already accumulated enough points for my Laureate accreditation and am well on my way to Laureate II at this point.

What is next for the Australian Photographic Prize and me: Honestly, I am a little unsure at this point. This recognition and these awards are still sinking in and will take me some time to process such a huge result. Winning the overall Grand Prize and being titled Australian Professional Photographer of the Year, as well as the Living World Division Winner, Wildlife category winner and Birds category winner, is already a pretty high bar, and I am not sure I can do better than that.

Reflecting on my entries this year, what keeps me coming back to these competitions is an inner desire to keep improving my photography, tell emotive stories, communicate through my photographs, and continue my artistic journey. I feel I accomplish at least a small part of that by continuing to enter, and I will likely continue to do so.