I attended this amazing visual and inspiring event again this year alongside friend and designer/director of Traxwatch; Kevin Bromley. We were both amazed and inspired by the images presented by the different photographers from around the world. Some very breathtaking images and a few firm favourites for me were the Bird Of Paradise images from Tim Laman . They were stunning and I particularly liked the way in which he captured these images by climbing into the tops of the trees. It was also great to see the locals building a hide there and watching the sun rise over the jungle valley beneath him was truly brilliant and something I love to do one day in my own work being a trained climber/abseiler.
Kai Fagerström images where amazing too, telling a lovely story of abandoned houses being reclaimed by mothernature and becoming home to many animals including Badgers. His image was a prize-winner in the 2010 Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, and for more than ten years, he has photographed badgers and other animals active at twilight in the area around his Finnish home, and for the past few years he has recorded the twilight and nocturnal activity of the wildlife inhabiting abandoned houses amazing, I really loved these images.
Nice also to speak to Joe Cornish I found his landscapes truly inspiring and learned a lot from his presentation. I don’t do a lot of landscape photography as such but I do love to capture a animal within their natural landscape which is very important to my work and watching and listening to Joe’s presentation was very interesting. It made me look at an image in a different manner to that of one with a living subject in. A recent image of mine in this years British Wildlife Photography Awards 2010 called ‘Frosty Morning’ has been included in their book which illustrates this ethos perfectly.
The image was of a male Barn Owl quartering a field where the landscape formed a big part of the image for me, it was taken during the recent cold spell at the beginning of the year which stayed with us for several months while many animals suffered to find food. The background was frozen solid and was in the shade at the time I took the image, compared to the rest of the image which was in the morning sunlight. The Owl was hunting as temperatures where around -8oc, he did survive the cold spell though which was great news.
Really nice to meet up with Charlie Hamilton James again after the Birdfair and I am looking forward to seeing him again in the new year when hopefully he’s going to help me with my underwater photos of Kingfishers, which he is the master of. A great show and nice to meet alot of nice people while we were there. It was great for Kevin also with his remote camera system Traxwatch creating a lot of interest. Kevin has chosen me to be one of the wildlife photographers to put this equipment through its paces and also promote this brilliant piece of kit along with Charlie, where it captures video, time lapse, freezes images and much,much more so really looking forward to trying this style of photography I have not used in the past. Also really great to see one of my Barn Owl images on his product, which is brilliant and I wish you all the luck Kevin.
Yesterday I was back to what I love, acompanied by Steve where we photographed the Red and Fallow Deer in the morning light which was beautiful, always on the look out for a different image. I captured this very soft and delicate looking young Fallow Deer feeding among this woodland. I waited for him to pass through the few shafts of light penetrating the tree canopy to capture him in the amazing sunlight, the image can be seen below, thanks for a great day Steve and a few surprises there from folks along the way.
There is a wonderful link that has just been sent to me from the BBC Wildlife Magazine, where it lists Photography courses for all and you’ll see another one of my Barn Owls images on my very popular advert I have with them , the link can be seen here. Have a look around the site, there’s some amazing images with great help and advice on lots of different topics.
