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The Starving Artist

Category Archives: Wildlife

Two Cows

25 Friday Jan 2013

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography, Wildlife

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

animals, Arts, camera, Cameras and Camcorders, cows, Digital single-lens reflex camera, nature, opportunities, outdoors, photography, popular point, seasonal, Snow, two cows, weather, wildlife, winter, winter wonderlands

Evening

Everyone has a camera these days, ranging from high end through to budget DSLR‘s, the ever popular “point & shoot” or just the plain old camera phone. But even though there are people with cameras everywhere how many people do you see pointing them at things – not very many.

People have cameras, but they don’t take the opportunities for pictures – if you have a camera and carry a camera then what’s the use of it being in your pocket or handbag. Take it out and point it at something and take a picture.

Here in the UK there has been a week or more of pretty bad snow (well, pretty bad for the UK) and I have been out and about in it a fair bit – but I have seen very few people taking pictures. Snow is a beautiful thing, it brings pictures alive, makes landscapes magical winter wonderlands and makes for people wrapping up in colourful scarfs.

I was out walking my two dogs, a regular dog walking area and I glanced up and saw these two cows just looking, it’s just two cows, but the pose and the snow and the look just said it all. Dozens of people walked on by – I didn’t – and now every time I look at this picture I smile

two cows

And putting a smile on a face is what a picture is meant to do – invoke emotion, be it a smile, a grimace, being startled or just going “wow”.

So next time you are out, in the snow rain or sunshine, just take your camera out and have a look around – you never know – you might see something that will make you smile.

 

Best – Colin

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Red Kite Feeding Frenzy

10 Thursday Jan 2013

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Wildlife

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

BBC Wildlife, Bird, climate, Gigrin Farm, Gordon Buchanan, Kite, nature, North Wales, outdoors, Powys, Red Kite, Svalbard, Wildlife Photography

Morning

There is a great story circulating the Internet at the moment about the BBC Wildlife Photographer Gordon Buchanan sitting in a perspex cage in Svalbard waiting to film polar bears – he gets more than he bargained for – but he captured on film some images that few people will ever see in the real world.

And this got me thinking about one of my own experiences as a wildlife photographer – no where near as dramatic as polar bears but none the less a site that few people will see let alone be fortunate enough to capture on film.

I shoot a lot of birds of prey, in particular Red Kites. These spectacular birds were once hunted to almost extinction in the UK, but after a successful re-introduction programme the species is thriving once more.

Red kites are a chestnut red with striking white patches under the wings and a pale grey head. Viewed from above, a broad white crescent curves across the inner part of the wings, but it is the underside that produces the most startling image.

The head is equipped with hooded amber eyes ringed with lemon yellow. The beak, wickedly hooked and very sharp, is designed for tearing meat and killing small prey animals.

It has a wingspan of nearly two metres, but a relatively small body weight of 2 – 3 Ibs. This means the bird is incredibly agile, and can stay in the air for many hours with hardly a beat of its wings.

There is a Red Kite feeding station in Powys, North Wales, which attracts up to 400 of the birds daily. It was at this feeding station where I captured a site on film that I had never seen before.

Every day the site owner hauls his tractor up to the feeding site and unloads several dozen kilos of raw beef onto the ground. Within a matter of moments the birds descend onto the meat and pluck it from the ground to be eaten on the wing/

It was whilst shooting this behaviour that I heard  lots of squeals and whistles above me and looking up I saw a mass of birds – I immediately pointed my lens to the sky and kept my finger on the motor winder shooting at 9fps. The “event” I had witnessed was over in a split second and I didn’t realise what I actually had on film until I got home and downloaded the images.

The sequence shows a single red kite carrying a large piece of beef in its claws, this kite was attacked by a number of other birds after the beef – not unusual behaviour at this site, but often it happens out of site or too high in the sky to be witnessed. The naked eye saw only a mass of feathers in this instance, it was the camera that caught the sequence and slowed it down to see each frame.

These images have been published around the world.

red kite sequence-1

 

red kite sequence-2

 

red kite sequence-3

 

red kite sequence-4

 

red kite sequence-5

 

red kite sequence-6

 

 

Best – Colin

Related articles
  • BBC Cameraman Has a Very Close Encounter with a Polar Bear (laughingsquid.com)
  • Kites defy gloom to fly higher than ever (yorkshirepost.co.uk)
  • BBC cameraman films close call with polar bear in new nature documentary (telegraph.co.uk)
  • Ten birds to look out for along the Wales Coast Path (visitwales.co.uk)

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Always open your post

11 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Business, Photography, Wildlife

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Arts, Arts and Entertainment, Associations, Award night, business, Gold Award, photography, POTY, Professional Photographers of America, SINWP, SWPP, SWPP BPPA Society, Wildlife Photography

Morning

Most mornings when I open the mail it’s either bills 😦 junk mail 😦 😦 or some other meaningless piece of paper that either ends up in the bin, or worse, left unopened.

Today though was a different matter!

In the mail today I received a certificate from The Societies.

The Societies are the fastest growing worldwide association for professional photographers. They manage eight internationally recognised photographic organisations focusing on prime services to full time and aspiring full time photographers

Each month they run competitions under each of their organisations, I myself belong to the SINWP and the SWPP (Society of International Nature & Wildlife Photographers & Society of Wedding & Portrait Photographers)

The standard of these competitions is very high as the entries each month come from photographers from all over the world. Each entry is ranked as follows:

Gold: Awards will go forward to the annual judging and are deemed to be images of the highest standard and will be published in Professional Imagemaker 

Highly Commended: Above standard. These images will be reviewed every three months and have the potential of being reclassified as Gold.

Not Awarded: Unfortunately these images fall below the standard required to be given an award.

Disqualified: These images have not adhered to the competition rules or category definitions.

The annual judging takes place at a hotel in London in January where the winner of each category is crowned Photographer of the Year and wins a nice trophy.

So I was happy today.

The image is of a common Buzzard in flight and posted below – along with the certificate 🙂

Buzzard

goldawardswpp-blog

Best – Colin

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Picture within a Picture

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography, Wildlife

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

be prepared, birds, Carrion Crow, DSLR, Fountain, Handhelds, Hipstamatic, iPhone, nature, opportunism, photography, portraiture, silhouette, Smartphone, Smartphones, Wildlife Photography

Morning.

Some of you will know I actually shoot a lot of wildlife photography as well as my bread and butter portraiture and bridal work. Wildlife photography is much harder than people think, you can’t ask the subject to “pose like this”, or “just move this way a little bit”, you have to take what you can get – usually.

Sometimes though an opportunity presents itself when you least expect it!

This image of the fountain – there is a lot going on, water splashing, sun poking from behind the centre pillar – but I wasn’t taking a picture of the fountain. Take a close look and you will see a Carrion Crow perching all fluffed up. He was in the middle bowl of the fountain bathing (heaven knows why it was near freezing where I was stood!) and I only had my iPhone on me at the time.

Straight away I saw in my mind this picture, but it had to be a silhouette, behind me were grey buildings so anything other than being backlit would not have worked. I positioned myself so the sun was just poking from behind the pillar to give added interest and waited for him to jump out.

I was lucky that he jumped out the right side AND fluffed his wings – I took several shots using the iPhone and the Hipstamatic App, there are several with him in full silhouette just perching, but I prefer this fluffed up one.

Carrion Crow - taken using Hipstamatic - using Foxy Lens & Kodak XGrizzled Film

Carrion Crow – taken using Hipstamatic – using Foxy Lens & Kodak XGrizzled Film

Sometimes pictures of wildlife can have greater impact on the viewer when they show the environment more than the subject, in this instance the picture only works because of the surroundings, a close up silhouette of the Crow (if I had my DSLR with me) would not have been so appealing.

Best – Colin

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Right place right time

27 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Wildlife

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Autumn, birds, entertainment, film, flocks, murmuration of starlings, right place at the right time, skies, Starlings, video, video recorder, wildlife

Afternoon,

Not much to say other than I was in the right place at the right time (and with a video recorder!)

 

 

best – Colin

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Gone Fishing

21 Wednesday Nov 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Wildlife

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bird of Prey, Bird Photography, Buzzard, Cairngorms, Osprey, Rutland Water, Scotland, Scottish Highlands

Morning

Every now and then I decide on the spur of the moment to go off on some mad photographic adventure like driving through the night to catch gannets at Sunrise then driving back home again, a 450 mile round trip.

But on this particular occasion I would really push my limits.

I have always been fascinated by birds of prey, wether it’s the Buzzards circling high up on the thermals, the Kestrel hovering by the road side, or even the Sparrow-hawk taking smaller birds from the garden.

Most UK birds of prey rely on either roadkill or smaller birds and small mammals for their food – but their is one bird of prey that stands out from the rest, notably because it’s diet consists solely of fish – the Osprey.

Whilst not indigenous to the UK, since the 1950’s some birds have been migrating to parts of Scotland to breed, in fact, almost every year since 1959 a pair have bred successfully at a site in the Scottish Highlands. Only recently have Ospreys started to nest in England, most notably at Rutland Water.

It is a large raptor, reaching more than 60 cm (24 in) in length and 180 cm (71 in) across the wings and can weight up to 4.6 lbs (2.1kg) – to see this size of bird plummet into a freshwater lake and rise up carrying a Salmon is pretty spectacular!

I just knew I had to go on a journey

The only site within the UK that you can reliably see these magnificent birds of prey is at a location in the Cairngorms in the Scottish Highlands. So I planned my journey. Because of filming and shooting other commitments I could only be away two days, so, I decided to drive up the night before my shoot, from Wiltshire to the Cairngorms and stay in a local B&B. Ospreys are very wary of humans (as with most wild birds/animals) and at this location you have to be in a hide long before the birds come fishing.

It was June and the birds start fishing at first light, so I had to be at the location and ready to shoot by 4.30am at the latest.

I was totally unprepared for the site of these large birds plummeting from the sky vertically and descending below the water line – they did it time and time again, not every time catching a fish. It was breathtaking.

The birds only fish until they have caught enough food – and so this spectacular sight was over within the hour.

Reviewing the images on the back of my SLR screen I see I had captured a lot of water, but few actual Osprey – I was too disappointed though when I saw these images.

It was a long drive back down South and more than once I am sure I dozed off, but thankfully I made it back.

A split second before this shot the Osprey was totally submerged under water.

Osprey emerging from the lake with Salmon

 

The same bird flying back to the nest to feed its young

Osprey taking prey back to nest

 

This is the hide I was shooting from. Small lightweight and packs up real nicely

My Hide

 

 

Best – Colin

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Ten Tips for Improving your Wildlife Photography

16 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by Colin Crowdey in Photography, Wildlife

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

animals, Bird of Prey, Common Buzzard, Dawn, Dusk, Environment, harmony, nature, outdoors, Patience, Red Kite, Sunlight, top wildlife tips, wild animals, Wildlife Photography

Afternoon.

All of us enjoy looking at images of wildlife. This world is filled with an abundance of different species, many of which we can only dream of seeing in the wild. Wildlife photography can produce some pretty spectacular results with plenty of care and attention to detail.

But contrary to belief, you do not have to venture far from your home to take images of wildlife and if you follow these tips then your wildlife photography will improve.

1. Do your research BEFORE you set off

If you go out with the aim of shooting birds of prey, do your research first. When are they most active? How do they hunt? What is their habitat? Do I need permission to walk across this particular field/path etc?

Doing the necessary research will enable you to better prepare yourself with the correct knowledge and equipment needed to shoot this particular species.

This shot of a Common Buzzard, was taken locally to me. I knew that this particular bird liked to perch on fence posts in the early evening in a field near my home. I set up a hide several hours in advance and waited. Luckily I was also blessed with beautiful backlighting which accentuated the flight feathers.

Common Buzzard

2. Choose your background carefully.

Backgrounds are almost as, if not more important than the image itself. Position yourself so there is a clear background for your subject to stand out from. Doing this one thing will greatly enhance the impact of your pictures.

The picture of a Rook below, a common if under rated bird, taken against a backdrop of out of focus reeds from a reed bed. The colour contrasts well with the blues and purples of the Rook. I used a long lens with a wide aperture to throw the background out of focus, and waited for a bird to land on the fence

Rook

3. Composition – the rule of thirds

Perhaps the most well known principle of photographic composition is the “rule of thirds”. The basic principle behind the rule of thirds is to imagine breaking an image down into thirds (both horizontally and vertically) so that you have 9 equal parts.
You then place your subject or point of interest at the point of intersection. This, in theory at least allows for a more balanced photograph which is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

This stooping Red Kite was compositionally placed, at the point of capture, in the top right intersection. Notice how the birds shape and placement lead your eye into the empty space below. If the bird was placed too centrally, or perhaps in the bottom left hand intersection, the picture would be unbalanced. (I have drawn the rule of thirds grid on this image)

Stooping Red Kite

4. Use natural framing

Where possible, try and use natural framing. This image of a Swallow was taken using the natural framing of a hole in a shed door. Inside the shed up in the rafters this Swallow had built a nest and the only entrance/exit was through this tiny hole in the door. Every now and then the bird would stop on the way out and perch for a split second, but mostly it would fly straight in and straight out – it took a LONG time to get this one image.

Swallow

5. Get up early

Get up, get out, preferably BEFORE dawn. This just happens to be the time of day when most animals are out hunting or foraging for food. The old adage, the early bird catches the worm, is never truer when spoken with Wildlife Photographers in mind.

It’s no good just getting up at Dawn, you have to be up about and set up at the location you are shooting, at Dawn.

This image of the Gannet at Sunrise, was taken at 5.30am, looking out from the North East Yorkshire coast line. I had wanted to take this image for a very long time, but I live several hundred miles from the location. On this particular day I got up at 1am, drove to the location, was set up at 4am and waited for the sun to rise. This was the image I wanted. I then packed up, and drove straight back home again 😦

A little extreme perhaps, but the light at dawn is the most beautiful light you will see.

Gannet at Sunrise

6. Don’t be a fair weather photographer

Don’t put your camera away at the first hint of rain/snow/hail etc. Go out what ever the weather. Animals and birds don’t stay inside in bad weather. Some of the best images are possible when you take the time and trouble to shoot in bad weather.

You can wrap up warm and stay dry, and your equipment can be protected by a multitude of wet weather protection gear sold on the internet these days. Failing that, you can always go to a nature reserve and sit in a purpose built hide.

These Lapwings were wading in a lake, oblivious to the torrential downpour that was going on. The rain drops in the water and the monochromatic feel to this image give a real sense of the harsh environment the birds were in.

Lapwings

7. Follow the Light

Light can change in an instant – be prepared for it and you will capture great images.

As previously stated, light can be best at dawn and often at dusk too. But at other times of the day it can be harsh and produce very unflattering results. Sometimes though, light appears when you least expect it and you need to be prepared. This image of the Drake Mallard was taken 15 minutes after the image above of the Lapwings. It’s true.

Mallard

8. Know your equipment – the right lens for the right job

It sounds simple, but often it isn’t. Wildlife photography can be very monotonous, sitting in hides for hours at a time, nothing happening, then, bang, the action happens, the animal/bird appears and then it’s all over again.

Wild animals/birds, by their very nature are shy creatures and (mostly) afraid of man. It’s usually necessary to use a long lens, 500mm and above, often with a converter, to capture some of the images we see daily in books and magazines. If you have followed all the other tips and done your research you will have the correct lens on your camera for the subject.

Away from bird feeders these Great Spotted Woodpeckers are extremely shy birds. This was taken with a 500mm lens from a hide.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

9. Look after the environment.

Whilst this might not affect your camera skills it is very important to realise where you are and that you should take care when out with your camera and equipment.

Take only photographs

Leave only footprints

leave it the same as you found it for others to enjoy

And finally….

10. Have Patience.

Wildlife photography can be very lonely and at times boring and monotonous. You can sometimes sit in hides for hours (days even) and not see what you are wanting to see. But with a little patience and perseverance it sometimes, just sometimes, all pays off.

I had been waiting for this Vixen for days, I had learnt her route from her den to her hunting grounds, and I had set up a hide in a prime location to capture her. But the wily old fox always knew I was around. In the following image, shot from a great distance with a 500mm lens and a lens converter she sat staring straight at me, for 40 minutes or so she just sat there, looking at me (well, where the hide was).

I was about to call it a day and pack up when she suddenly yawned the widest yawn you will ever see, and turned and disappeared.

A big grin did I have that day 🙂

Wily old Fox

Best – Colin

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