Howard Birnstihl, as an art teacher was one of the pioneers of photography and film studies in Australian high schools.  Becoming a fulltime photographer he spent the 70’s and 80’s specializing in candid sociological studies, winning many awards, his camera always at the ready.  With over a million pics on file, he and his wife Gil ran a successful photo library supplying illustration to virtually every publisher in the country.   Always a lover of Australian flora and fauna, he later specialized in this area, concentrating on the smaller end of the scale with detailed macro studies.  After honing these close-up skills he became one of the country’s leading jewellery photographers, and as something of a Renaissance man, has lately turned his hand to writing .