Ockert Le Roux lives by light, not time.

Even if the full-time forestry worker could take his photos during the day, he would still be up before the sun, capturing a foggy crater or lopsided Milky Way.

"Fortunately the best light lives before and after work," Le Roux said.

"That sort of sunset and sunrise time, where light's really beautiful."

Despite having a professional-grade camera and major commissioned works to his name, the 56-year-old's advice to people wanting to take photos is quite simple and affordable.

"What do you see? How do you observe the world? What is your unique perspective?"

Le Roux's perspective has developed over four decades; he took his first stills aged 13 with a 1958 Pentax on a school camp near Cape Town, South Africa in 1976.

He almost died in a bus crash on the way there but what he remembered most is borrowing his dad's camera for the first time.

"The first thing I thought of when I came around was 'Where's this camera? Is the camera broken?'" Le Roux said.

"When I came back, and the photos were developed, Dad was fairly impressed."

Doesn't matter what gear you have

With 15 billion cameras in the world, Mr Le Roux said good photography was more about interpretation than access.

"Visual sense is so rich. You've got distance, you've got texture, you've got colour, movement and the brain needs to compute all those things," he said.

Things that are not limited by the camera you use.

"People still fall in that trap when they ask me, 'What's the best gear to take an image?' and they're all good," Le Roux said.

Phone cameras 'great for little things'

Le Roux particularly likes the freedom his mobile phone gives him in street photography.

"People blend into the crowd, so they disappear, you as a photographer disappear," he said.

Editor of Great Walks Magazine, and a keen photographer, Brent McKean has overseen dozens of outdoor photography competitions.

He said half of the entries nowadays were taken on mobile phones and it was photographer's eye that mattered, not the camera.

"A blurry photo is a blurry photo, a photo without a subject is still not an interesting photo," Mr McKean said.

"My phone is great for little things like a sign, something small or something random.

Timing only half of it

It is not just light but the colour that motivates Le Roux.

After living in Mount Gambier on South Australia's Limestone Coast for six years, the South African has learned to be in sync with his new environment.

"Because you work with stars and seasons and sun, it becomes a natural thing you work out," Le Roux.

He calls this putting a photo in incubation.

As for finding the time to take advantage of that golden light at the start and end of the day, Le Roux says he has to make it happen.

"You have to make time; if you don't make time, invest in that time, you will never have time," he said.

Bringing history to life

Le Roux never liked history in school but has developed a passion for it through photography.

"People will ring me up and say, 'We've got this great story for you'."

Recently he was asked to photograph an old World War II receival station on a farmer's property.

Rather than just photographing a stagnant concrete slab, he asked two WWII veterans from the region to pose in the frame.

"They were not associated with that installation, but they were definitely associated with World War II," Le Roux said.

More cameras mean more stories told

Karen Irvine, the chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, said it was hard to tell just how many of the photos the museum received had been taken on mobile phones or budget cameras.

"Many times we don't know how the photos were taken," she said.

She said camera phones have made photography a much more accessible art form and radically changed the way history is recorded.

"Images are very easy to circulate, we get to see events unfold in real time and from multiple perspectives," Ms Irvine said.