MATT WORDSWORTH, PRESENTER: The explosion in smartphone ownership has meant almost everyone has access to a good quality digital camera to capture and share those special moments.

One of the biggest casualties has been the art of professional photography.

David Anderson used to make a healthy living shooting some of the biggest names in rock and roll. Now he's focusing on an unlikely new muse - trout. And that's the subject of his book, Fly-fishing in Small Streams in Australia and New Zealand.

Ginny Stein filmed this report.

GINNY STEIN, REPORTER: This is David Anderson's happy place.

DAVID ANDERSON: For me, after all these years, it is just about being here in this place, this beautiful place and I love the mountains and the outdoors. I love the sound of running water, it is the only thing I can hear any more.

It is a beautiful place, why wouldn't you want to be here?

GINNY STEIN: It wasn't always this way.

He spent years photographing some of the biggest names in rock 'n' roll in the world.

DAVID ANDERSON: The big acts of the time when I started, Nirvana was probably the biggest in the world. Locally the Screaming Jets were massive, Silverchair took off.

Oh look, some of the live shows were just, your heartbeat is regulated by the bass drum, and your ears are stinging from the Marshall amps, and if you don't get lifted by that you need to check your pulse.

The stars too, they are always interesting people, they are different, they're weird, they stand out for whatever reason.

Pamela Anderson came here in 1995. She was the biggest TV star in the world, female TV star. I brought a hat along, an Akubra hat along, because it was the shot. You get the star wearing the Akubra hat, Australian thing.

I handed the hat to her in the van, with the goal of getting this photo and she put on. She said, "Oh, this is really nice, really nice, cute, does it look good on me?" I'm like "Yeah, looks great" and I started taking pictures.

And she says "What's it made of?" and I didn't even, because I'm not very smart, I said "Rabbits" and she went, "Rabbits?"

And in my mind I was like "Oh, Dave, shut up! Do not talk, take photos, shut up!"

And I thought she was going to cry but luckily for me her make-up artist from the seat next to her, she said "Oh Pam, don't be silly, they don't kill them, they just shear them!"

This was Johannesburg, the Stones, very exciting. They're not bad for a bunch of really, really old guys.

This is Heath not long before he died, very sad.

That is one of my favourites moments, Pink. When she really got big she came back to Australia and we did a photo shoot over in a night club and she had the flu, and I thought, "Oh god this is it," because you know, being a man, if I get the flu you are on the edge of death and she rocked up and I thought, this is terrible.

She handed a tape to the DJ and said crank this, and it was Metallica and he put it on so loud, you can imagine in a night club, you could hardly breathe and she just fired up and took great photos for six hours.

You don't get that famous if you fall over the first time you feel a little bit sick.

GINNY STEIN: Is there an art to rock 'n' roll photography? Is it gone, does it still exist?

DAVID ANDERSON: It is gone in a sense that it is not hard any more. That sounds wrong, maybe. Anybody can do it now, the cameras are so good now, they work in any kind of low light.

You can get a shot in the dark basically but when I started on film, it was hard. You really had to plan your moment, and you can probably do stuff on your phone now that I couldn't of dreamed of 10 years ago.

Photographing Nickelback, I love that when they pull you up on stage and say, get a photo of us and we'll get the crowd wound up and their manager got this photo of me working. You can see my cap.

GINNY STEIN: You are already trout afflicted by this stage?

DAVID ANDERSON: I have been trout fishing, like I said, for 40 and a bit years, and right through the heart of my photographic career I would sneak off whenever I could just for the peace and quiet.

And I think photographing trout has been sort of a tonic that has kept this other stuff interesting.

This is as far removed from rock 'n' roll as you can get, which probably sustained me through 30 years of shooting rock 'n' roll. After a few days of the noise and the crowds and the pushing and shoving and beer barns and whatnot I can restore myself out here.

GINNY STEIN: The death of the business model for rock star photography was swift.

DAVID ANDERSON: So in the mid-'90s before digital started, mid to late '90s, having an exclusive meant making a lot of money.

I had five minutes exclusive shoot with Hanson on a boat on the harbour arranged by a friend, and I made a lot of money. It might have turned over $100,000.

GINNY STEIN: But now?

DAVID ANDERSON: $100,000 would take five years. The glory days, well and truly over! In fly-fishing it would take 50 years!

I just decided, start my blog - twigwater.com and I was going to write and take photos of trout stuff and I was going to take the best photos I possibly could of trout stuff.

I applied myself to it totally, and everything I know about portrait photography I applied to photographing trout.

This is a very silvery brown trout with a yellow head. A big, big New Zealand brown trout, an old war horse with spots of damage and everything.

GINNY STEIN: David Andersen, who once photographed the Queen, said he uses the same corporate skills when it comes to photographing fish.

DAVID ANDERSON: This would be very similar to an environmental portrait, a picture of somebody in their workplace or their environment. So I show the small waterfall and the pool of water.

We're using top-light there to bring the subject out from the background. Limited focus, this sort of lighting, lighting from the side. Just the same sort of stuff I would do with the Queen if I could get her standing in a pool of water. That is where you would want to do it.

GINNY STEIN: Just don't ask him to eat one.

DAVID ANDERSON: I hate fish. Seafood no, shellfish particularly, I can't stand the smell of it.

If you cook the fish near me I wouldn't eat afterwards. I hate it.

I always put them back, kiss them, see you later.

It saves all that carrying them around and I can lie incredibly about what I caught or didn't catch, because nobody expects me to have the fish at home.