15 years ago, I built a house with a balcony in a small village in the middle of Sweden beside a forest. I never expected that my balcony would become a photo studio for wild animals. Now I make my living with red squirrel photography.

It all started with a fox standing in front of my door. I started to take photos of the fox. After 2 weeks of daily visits, the fox started to climb onto my balcony and climb into boxes. This was the start of creating scenes on my balcony where I would lay out food for wildlife and capture them with my camera.

The studio is built 1 meter from the ground and is directly connected with my kitchen window and the forest. This is how I make compositions at eye level, 3 meters from my window. I use food to lure animals.

There can be a total of 14 squirrels visiting my garden, but mostly, there are 6 coming daily. I do not give them much food, so that they are not dependent on me.

I have won prizes, published books, and been published in many newspapers and magazines, TV and radio broadcasts, as well as worked together with publishers and artists. I have also done commercials and organized workshops. I've also been featured on Bored Panda many times, and you can find the links to these articles here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Although there can be many squirrels coming in my scenes simultaneously, they are rarely all perfectly in focus or the right composition; therefore, I sometimes capture 2 photos with the animals in different positions and stack them together. Another thing I do is cloning out wires, pins, or food buckets if needed.

I upload new photos on Patreon daily. Here I offer different gifts for a monthly fee.

More info: geertweggen.com | Facebook | Instagram | flickr.com | patreon.com | geertweggen.com | youtube.com