wildlife photography

Within a stone’s throw… – A ‘Scenes within a scene’ project

Durham, landscape, Nature, plants, Projects, Scenes within a scene, wildlife, Yorkshire

This is a sub-project of my ‘Scenes within a scene’ project. ‘Within a stone’s throw’ effectively started itself because sometimes, thanks to my arthritis, I can’t walk very far at all. Thus these photos are all made within a few steps (a stone’s throw) of my landscape view. If anything, it even more effectively shows why it’s worth slowing down and observing every detail of these beautiful places.

I’m always surprised at how much more you observe when slowing down and trying to look for photographic subjects, especially the smaller flowers and plants. It also tends to be the best way to see wildlife, as many animals, birds and insects hide away and slowly come out when we stay quiet and they decide I’m probably harmless! I also photograph using the car as a hide, and this can be very effective for photographing birds and animals that have grown used to ignoring parked cars. The moorland birds were all photographed using the parked car as a hide.

I created the composite images in Lightroom’s Print module, using a variety of user templates.

  • Within a stone’s throw – Upper Teesdale, near Cow Green Reservoir
  • Within a stone’s throw – Upper Teesdale stream
  • Within a stone’s throw – North Yorkshire Moors

Scenes within a scene

Creative, landscape, Nature, plants, Projects, Scenes within a scene, Uncategorised, wildlife

This is a project I started after hearing several speakers talking about people taking a quick photo of a scene and then just moving on to the next big view, without taking the time to enjoy the smaller details, wildlife, colours and abstracts within that bigger picture. If anything I tend to be the opposite way round, enjoying the wildlife and details of nature, and taking fewer big landscapes, but it made me think of a project idea, so in these photos I’ve taken a landscape view, and then shown the details within my bigger scene – scenes within scenes. My aim was to take all the photos within 100m (a distance I can usually manage even on crutches) of my bigger ‘landscape’ picture to show why it’s worth slowing down and enjoying these beautiful places.

Since starting this project I’ve found I observe more details of the ecosystems I visit. When slowing down to look for photographic subjects we are more likely to notice the smaller flowers and insects like the butterflies and beetle in the spring North Yorkshire Moors image. I stopped because I saw one butterfly, then noticed a green tiger beetle, then another butterfly and so on! When we slow down we also tend to notice more macro details and abstract images, like the water abstracts in Dalby Forest, and also take more time to try more creative views of nature like the ICM and multiple exposure images in Broxa forest in autumn. Limiting ourselves to photographing in a smaller area, rather than rushing on to the next big view, we have had chance encounters with wildlife like the geese flying across Cow Green reservoir, reflected in the still water (the only time I’ve ever seen it that still and reflective).

Having taken my images, I create the composite images in Lightroom’s Print module, using a variety of user templates. I try to match or balance colour themes in my images and balance the subjects to create the most pleasing compositions, and then print to file to create my finished image.

  • North Yorks Moors in Summer – scenes within a scene
  • Skipwith Hall Gardens – Kitchen garden – scenes within a scene
  • Skipwith Hall Gardens – Scenes within a scene
  • Skipwith Hall Gardens – Scenes within a scene
  • Wolds in winter – Scenes within a scene
  • North Pennines – scenes within a scene – road between Teesdale and Weardale
  • Upper Teesdale in Spring – Scenes within a scene
  • Upper Teesdale – Scenes within a scene
  • North Yorks Moors – scenes within a scene
  • Broxa forest in autumn – Scenes within a scene
  • Cow Green reservoir – Scenes within a scene project
  • Pocklington canal Scenes within a scene project
  • Dalby Forest Lake – Scenes within a scene
  • Stone creek – Scenes within a scene
  • Broxa Forest – Scenes within a scene
  • Yorkshire Dales – scenes within a scene
  • Flower meadow – scenes within a scene
  • Worsendale – scene within a scene
  • Coverdale – Scenes within a scene
  • Allerthorpe common in winter – scenes within a scene

Summer on the North Yorkshire moors – ‘Through the year project’

Nature, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some early morning photos of the grouse on the North Yorks moors.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Summer at Bempton cliffs – ‘Through the year project’

Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some early morning visits to Bempton cliffs produced some beautiful lighting on the seabirds that nest there. The gannets particularly are wonderful photographic subjects and the amazing light allowed me to add to my series of chiaroscuro and bokeh images.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Spring on the Moorland – ‘Through the year’ project

Creative, Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

I’ve been working on various projects over the last few months, including themed photographs, and more creative photography ideas.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

These are a few of the photos I’ve taken from moorland days out:

I also love working with backlighting and have been experimenting with taking multiple exposure photos:

Lark ascending

I loved silhouetting this skylark against the sunlit sky as it rose up above me, but also tried combining several photos in a multiple exposure shot against the light, which shows the beautiful feathers, and the movement of the bird:

lark ascending sequence
cottongrass multiple exposure

This is a multiple exposure of the cottongrass, blowing in the wind, and again backlit by the low sun. Below is a backlit photo of a snipe, taken early morning on the North Yorkshire Moors.

backlit snipe

Spring in the woodland – ‘Through the year’ project

Nature, plants, Projects, Through the year project, wildlife, Yorkshire

Some photos from Forge valley and the nearby woodland.

This is part of a large ongoing project to photograph the habitats I regularly visit in Yorkshire, and a few surrounding counties, to show the flora and fauna found in these ecosystems throughout the year. These include farmland, meadows, riverbanks, moorland, woodland, and coastal cliffs.

Places I visit for photography

Nature, Places and travel, wildlife, Yorkshire

I’ve added some new pages to my website giving a bit of information about some of the places I visit for my photography. So far I’ve written about Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, Bempton Cliffs, the Farne islands, Donna Nook, Forge Valley and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, but I’ll be adding more about both local sites in Yorkshire, and some of the longer journeys we make to Northumberland or Scotland, and some of the sites we visit there.

Forge Valley

Forge Valley woods, North Yorkshire

Studley Royal, North Yorkshire

Farne islands, Northumberland

Bempton cliffs, East Yorkshire

Donna Nook, Lincolnshire

North Yorkshire Moors Railway

Some winter visitors to the garden

Nature, wildlife

We’ve had plenty of birds on the feeders and plants in our garden with the recent snow. The goldfinches are always very photogenic, but particularly so when perched on the snow covered teasels in our garden. We also had four fieldfares visiting for the rosehips we left on our roses, and it was lovely to see these beautiful winter visitors.

 

A more creative approach to nature photography

Creative, Nature

I love watching wildlife and capturing an animal or bird’s behaviour or character in my wildlife portraits, but some of my more recent projects have been aimed at capturing more of the spirit and beauty of nature in more creative ways. This is very much a work in progress, and rather than one particular style or technique, I’ve tried a variety of styles and  techniques, as I think what is needed to bring out its essence and character is, to some extent, dependent upon the animal, bird or environment concerned.

For example, when photographing terns in the Farne islands, I wanted to convey something of the balletic elegance of their flight, and so aimed for a high key approach with the sun shining through the feathers to give a more ethereal quality, combined with a slower shutter speed to allow some movement blur.

When watching bullfinches feeding in a snowstorm in Scotland, the white background and bright colour palette of the bullfinch plumage reminded me of Chinese bird and flower brush paintings, and this concept certainly influenced how I approached the subject. With the snow helping to create a minimalistic background, I exposed the image to brighten this further, used a slower shutter speed to capture some movement blur, like rough brush strokes, in the bullfinch’s fluttering wing, and aimed to keep the image simple and painterly in my processing.

Sometimes the animal’s habitat is what makes the scene interesting, in which case I aim to use composition and processing to bring out interesting patterns or textures. An example is the long-eared owl in woodland, where I wanted to emphasise the patterns formed by the branches, against a subdued colour palette caused by an earlier snowfall, with the owl being merely a part of the beautiful woodland scene.

Equally I loved the amazing curves and shapes of the eroded cliffs on Noss, Shetland, where the texture and pattern of the cliffs make the picture, as much as the gannet perched on his ledge (see also at the top).

Sometimes the story is about the relationship of the animal to its environment. I photographed this stag roaring on a mountainside in Ardnamurchan. The roaring of stags carried for miles, and was the only sound other than the wind in the remote glen where we stood looking up at the mountainside to spot the source of the noise. When photographing him I wanted to show something of the size and space of his remote habitat, so I waited until he moved towards another stag and stepped out onto the crest of the ridge, so that I could silhouette him as a very small, but still recognisable shape against the colourful sky.

I have also worked on a series of photos of water birds where the colours reflected in the water are a key element of the picture. These great-crested grebes are probably my favourites of these images. I love the colours and patterns of the reflections and ripples on the water.

Most recently I managed to take a series of photos of swans in a style I had wanted to achieve for some time. I sometimes like to use a dramatic lighting style (chiaroscuro style lighting) in my monochrome photos, and had pre-visualised photographing swans in a very high contrast style, with the light shining through, and on, the swan’s white feathers, creating an ethereal effect, as with the tern.

Hopefully these photos capture more than just a record shot of wildlife, though they don’t always seem to go down well with judges, but, as we’re always being told, we should take the photos we want to take, and these are definitely the photos that I enjoy making the most, so it’s an area I want to keep developing and progressing – watch this space!

A visit to Studley Royal

wildlife

We visited Studley Royal, near Ripon, on Monday, and I got some photos that I’ve been pre-visualising for some time. I really wanted to get some close-up photos of the swans, picking out details of the their plumage against a dark background. Fortunately I got the light I wanted and some cooperative subjects and I was pleased with the results.

Swan1Swan3Swan2Helen_Jones661120171009-02

Farnes

wildlife

Some photos from a day trip to the Farne islands. I created some composite images of the terns flying – they are so graceful and almost balletic in their flight. I also loved the puffin who decided to look at me with his head upside down – not the best of photos, but it did make me laugh!

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