How photographer Jo Howell captures stunning wildlife shots

Fuelling her passion is its higher purpose. Images can help people connect with and care about wildlife conservation, she says.

“If I can take an image that changes somebody’s mind about something, that’s pretty special.”

Howell says her snap last month of Victoria’s bird emblem, the critically endangered helmeted honeyeater, provoked the biggest response from the public.

Twenty-one of the species were bred at Healesville Sanctuary and being released in a forest south-east of Melbourne. Howell spied a shaft of sunlight; one of the birds flew into it and spread its wings, facing her. She got the shot.

“It was just a bit angelic, a bit magical,” she said.

“It was one of those shots where I had a picture in my mind, and it came out exactly as I wanted, due to planning and knowing what the birds do. I think it shows the beauty of the species.”

Howell loves learning about her subjects. Binturongs, also called bearcats, are native to south and south-east Asia, “smell like popcorn”, have “adorable” faces and are messy eaters.

But they are also listed as a vulnerable species, with numbers in the wild falling due to deforestation.

Howell completes about 10 assignments per week, and her footage might be published on TV, YouTube, social media or newspapers, sometimes within hours of a shoot.

Howell says one of the most distressing times was when she documented koalas receiving treatment at Healesville Sanctuary with burned paws, noses and ears from the 2019 Gippsland bushfires.

But it was joyful and healing for her to document colleagues returning some of the recovered koalas to the wild in 2021 near Mallacoota.

“It made me emotional, seeing that there was hope, that the work being done is worthwhile,” she said.