Surrey Bluebells – ISO 400; 50-140mm; f/2.8; 1/60 sec (click image to view larger size)
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Bluebell Retrospective
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Tag Archives: nature
Funzing Photo Walk
I was very lucky yesterday to have an enthusiastic young lady attend one of the photo walks I’ve recently been advertising on the Funzing website. This one was held in Richmond Park.
Snow!
This stag has recently lost one of his antlers, the other will also drop off soon. With red deer, this happens naturally around the end of winter and they take until July to regrow.
Snow is scarce in southern Britain. Checking through my archives, it’s been around eight years since I captured images in a decent snowfall. So I was excited when the “Beast from the East” (a Siberian weather system heading our way) was forecast to bring us unusually heavy snow.
Westonbirt Arboretum
Autumn Colours – A blend of two images, one in focus and one out of focus.
A few days ago I travelled over to Gloucestershire to attend a one day autumn colours workshop at Westonbirt Arboretum run by Light & Land and led by award winning photographer Andy Farrer. It was a good day at a lovely, colourful location with a nice group of people. Weather was a bit grey but at least it didn’t pour down!
Put yourself in the picture
Autumn Walk – ISO 400; 166mm; f/5.6; 1/180 sec (click image to view larger size)
What to do when you find a nice (quiet) location but you think having a person in view would help add something to the image? Put the camera on a tripod, set your 10 second timer, step into the limelight and become the star of the show. Although, it’s not always quite as easy as it sounds, as I found out recently!
The Rut
This fight was over in about 5 seconds!
This is a short post purely to share some images.
I’ve spent several mornings in Richmond Park over the last six weeks or so, mainly to photograph the deer during the autumn rut – the time of year when red deer stags and fallow deer bucks fight for dominance and the right to mate with the female hinds and does respectively.
Autumn Colours
Autumn is taking hold and colours are changing, so I thought I would post a few of the images I have made over the last few weeks from visiting several local woods.
Back off!
Back Off! – ISO 200; 196mm; f/4; 1/800 sec (click image to view larger size)
A couple of us were enjoying photographing some red deer towards the end of a photo walk in Richmond Park when I took the image above.
We’d had dull conditions to start, no sign of the sun at sunrise, quite windy and a heavy downpour during which we had to shelter under the trees, but the sun appeared eventually giving us some better light. There had been a lot of deer activity with this being the Autumn rut – plenty of bellowing and running back and to, with the larger stags fending off the younger males who were trying marauding tactics, running into the group of hinds to try and split them up and take a few away, some with success but mostly not. The odd hind slipped away by themselves, tempted by the bellowing and strutting of another male nearby, who would quickly run over to round her up.
Ticks (on me!)
A tick in place on my thigh
Photographing the deer (or anything else) in Richmond Park in the warmer months presents a few (very) small challenges – namely ticks!
If you’re squeamish about creepy crawlies (especially the ones that feed on you) then click away now!
Deer Photography – Part 1: Stealth
Red deer stag with spring antler growth – 140mm with 1.4x extender (196mm equivalent); ISO 400; 1/950 sec; f/4 (click image to view larger size)
Over the past few years, I’ve photographed the deer in Richmond Park on many occasions, so I thought I’d write some articles that may provide useful information to other photographers who might be interested.
