Southport Magazine

Art is everywhere, and sometimes you find it in the unlikeliest places, like an airplane. Photographer and Filmmaker Cannon Wentworth was born and raised in Charlotte and moved to Wilmington in 2011 to attend UNCW as a film studies major. Her life changed when she was offered the chance to study abroad and fulfill her childhood dream of going to South Africa. Cannon jumped on an opportunity to learn there and has lived in South Africa for the past five years. I just happened to sit next to her on a flight from Newark to Wilmington in true serendipity. 

We immediately started talking about our dogs and her incredible journey as a wildlife photographer. “I studied abroad in South Africa through UNCW for about a month in 2013 and it was just not long enough. I fell in love with the country and its people immediately,” she said. “The next year, I found a wildlife filmmaking internship there, and so in 2014, attended the internship and returned to South Africa. In 2015 I graduated from UNCW and decided to travel, starting in Scotland, and worked my way down to Botswana for a wildlife project in the Central Kalahari. After the project finished, I was so close to South Africa with little to do, so I returned to South Africa for a third time, found a job, and roots began to grow.” 

Living so far away from home does present challenges. However, Cannon has learned living at a slower pace and has adapted to her new home abroad. Although South Africa is laid back, much like Wilmington, it is a third-world country with some fundamental differences. “South Africans are amazing people who are strong and adaptable to any circumstance, a common saying being ‘make a plan.’ There are much fewer rules in South Africa, like being able to walk your dog off the leash on the beach all year, which I love. The landscape is completely different to Wilmington as it is mountainous in areas, with an extremely diverse coastline whereas Wilmington is flatter with long beaches. There are pockets of pine trees in South Africa which is always a nice reminder of home. Oh and South Africa doesn’t have Chick-fil-a,” she joked. “I do miss Wilmington. Wilmington holds such a special place in my heart, and you will very often find me bragging about this great little city to South Africans while I’m abroad. I am very proud to be from NC, and especially Wilmington.” 

Being able to merge her passions into her work is an incredible accomplishment. Cannon always knew she wanted to work with animals somehow but realized that being a veterinarian or zoologist wasn’t for her. She decided to choose film studies in college so she could be near animals. “My biggest passion is wildlife, as I have been obsessed with animals since I was very young. Another passion of mine is the camera, both photography and videography. I bought my first DSLR in the eighth grade with babysitting money,” she said. “I always wanted to do something with animals as a career. Rather than research or veterinarian, I decided to combine two passions, wildlife and the camera, and strive to become a wildlife filmmaker/photographer,” she said. “I majored in film studies and worked as a lead videographer. I worked as an assistant editor in Chicago at a production company, and now I co-own a production company in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, that does filmmaking and photography. My goal is to use the camera as a communication tool to shed light and educate people about wildlife.”

Capturing just the right photo at the perfect moment is a thrilling aspect of wildlife photography. Trying to find the animals in the wild and predict their behavior is challenging but rewarding. Because Cannon’s husband Nickolas shares a similar interest in animals as a safari guide and wildlife artist, she has many opportunities to see wildlife in their natural habitat. “I love capturing genuine beauty and exhibiting it in ways people who don’t exactly care for nature or wildlife will even appreciate,” she said. “My husband and I work as a team to find our favorites, being apex predators like leopards, lions and cheetahs, and the gorgeous giant elephants,” she said. “My personal favorite has to be the wild dogs. They are very rare to find (being an endangered species) and usually, the sighting happens as quick as a flash, so it’s a very challenging animal to get nice photos of. But when you get that perfectly lit and composed photo of that wild animal, the adrenaline rush is beyond compare,” she said. “It’s a great coincidence that the best time to view wildlife is in the early morning and late afternoon as that is what photographers call the ‘golden hour.’ In photography terms, the golden hour is an hour after sunrise and an hour before sunset. This is when you get the best lighting for photographs and when animals are most active,” she said. “I shoot on Fuji Film. I am beyond happy with Fuji and the quality you get for its size. I find the quality much higher, and the photos have more depth and a better color profile on a Fuji. The equipment is also much lighter, which helps with wildlife photography.”

Being animal lovers, Cannon and her husband have rescued three dogs that you will often see in her photography. One is a purebred Border collie, and the others are border collie mixes. “Their favorite thing to do is ‘monkey patrol,’ which is chasing the Vervet monkeys along the perimeter of our fence line,” said Cannon. “Our border collie joins my husband on game drives and knows all the animals by name. His absolute favorite is a warthog. He doesn’t really care for the big animals but loves warthog, jackal, mongoose, and springbok – just to list a few. On a game drive, he is trained to lie down when he smells lions, which helps us know they are in the immediate area. They live very spoiled lives with beach visits, kayak trips, game drives, and more.”

Look for Cannon on Facebook or Instagram to see more of her fantastic work.