A wet, wet world

It seems to be raining all over the world and Cornwall is no different. Even the local wildlife seems to be fed up of the water...

A learning Curve...

I have spent the last weekend at Wildphotos, a photography symposium where the worlds best wildlife photographers come together and share their tips and stories. It was truly inspiring. This was coupled with a trip to Bushy park with an accomplished photographer, who taught me even more... unfortunately the light wasn't great so  I didn't capture anything fantastic... But I feel these two show best what I learnt over the weekend.

Light is everything; A stag portait in the 'golden hour' before sunset

Creating a sense of place;  a Grey Squirrel feeds, I kept it small in the frame to show the environment it's in. This was something that many photographers highlighted at the symposium.

A beautiful day in sunny Cornwall

The weather has been very poor lately in Cornwall. Luckily we had a break and the sun was shining though the wind was still strong. We headed to Godrevy point on the North coast of Cornwall. There is always a a lot of wildlife on Godrevy and today didn't disappoint. 

Female Stonechat in the 'golden hour' before sunset

Juvenile Cormorant 

Cormorant diving for food

An affectionate pair of Grey seals 

Rock Pipit with an insect for lunch

Just before we left we were treated with a Kestrel landing only a few feet away from us, the light was perfect...

Kestrel 

The day ended with one of the most stunning sunsets i've seen in cornwall, I only had a 500mm so had to make do

Sunset over St.Ives bay

As my project studying the Cornish Chough continues I was very excited to get down to their nest site, though a very foggy dawn made for difficult bird watching. Perseverance paid off after we had a couple of great spells with the pair feeding a few meters away, with the sky still heavy with fog the photographs are fairly poor though it is important for my project to contain photos of the Choughs in all weather conditions.

Our dedication again paid off on the way back to falmouth, we saw one of the biggest birds of prey native to Britain, the ever impressive Hen Harrier.

Female Hen Harier

Herring Gulls waiting for breakfast

I will be spending much more time in the field photographing the Cornish Choughs, the light was very poor so this is just a taste of things to come, though I am still pleased with this morning's work.

A pair of the rarest crows in Britain

An unexpected hop on to a bench

The Chough has a striking profile

Invertebrates are a favoured food source

A morning preen 

A very busy day

It's the start of my third year at university and time to take photography more seriously than ever. Aside from my major project I am continuing to photograph the wildlife around Cornwall. Lately I have been working on a project with Dippers which is proving to be very difficult. All the shots below are from a very busy tuesday.

Dippers are an elusive stream dwelling bird...

Dipper

Dipper

Later on the same day at Godrevy head....

A pair of Grey Seals playing

A juvenile Stonechat braving the rain

Oyster catcher

What you sayin?

Chequered droplets

Today I spent some more time in the studio, playing on an idea I had seen on the internet; refracting a background in water droplets as they fall. It was difficult to get the droplets to fall in the centre of the frame and it was even harder to focus accurately.

It was a fairly successful shoot though I will look to improve by altering the background or the liquid dropped. These photographs were captured with high-speed flash guns.

The Background is refracted through the water droplets

An example showing the effectiveness of the 'rule of thirds'

A milk droplet from a previous shoot

Experimental Photography

Today I went to the studio with Monsieur Fogg who is a dab hand at lighting techniques, we experimented with high speed flash and fruit. The most successful shots of the day were of his eye, more work on this kind of lighting will hopefully make for better results, though I feel this is a good start. 

---THERE HAS BEEN NO EDITING OF THESE PHOTOGRAPHS, THEY ARE STRAIGHT FROM THE CAMERA

Sam's Eye, NO PHOTOSHOP straight from the camera

Milk droplet, captured using high speed flash

Particular lighting techniques allow for the iris to become far more detailed

Here is a shot from a project I am working with a different Sam, the elusive Dipper, incredibly low-light and early mornings have made for little success so far. Hopefully perseverance will pay off.

Dipper