A seminar with Heather Angel

OK, so yesterday evening I attended a seminar hosted by Heather Angel on macro wildlife photography. Sitting there with my notebook, I hardly expected to be scribbling in it immediately. But the first slide shown demonstrated the use of a most natural diffuser. It was an image of a rose taken outdoors and with the most beautiful soft light illuminating it casting very delicate shadows. The picture was taken towards the end of the day and the sun was starting to set beyond a tree line. Heather had used the trees as a diffuser. I would never have thought of that but I'll certainly be giving it a try in the not too distant future. Heather likes to use "before" and "after" images in some instances, highlighting the advantages of using certain techniques. In one frame a flower covered wall had been photographed during the middle of the day. The top part of the wall was well lit, but the light didn't have the same effect on the bottom of the shot which was fairly dark. The placement of a simple reflector below the frame made an astonishing difference. Sometimes I guess it is easy to look for complicated solutions and miss the blatantly simple one! As an aside, some of the setups were explained and in a few cases, photographed. The use of plamps seems to be a prerequisite for exercising some control over light, so I'm off to the shops again!

Visions of Light. A workshop with Andy Rouse

Way back in March I did blow the dust off the camera and headed to The British Wildlife centre for a workshop with eminent wildlife photographer, Andy Rouse. It was my birthday treat to myself and I was hoping to use it to reignite my enthusiasm. I did enjoy it and benefited greatly from Andy's expertise. The one thing Andy made abundantly clear is that most animals are seen below eye level, so to really get a good look into their eyes it is essential to lower the level of the camera. With this in mind I headed off to one of the enclosures and lay flat on the ground with the camera pointing upwards. Not an angle of view I'm accustomed to but the results were instant. 

In this image of a fox lit from above right the importance of being able to capture the entire eye becomes apparent. Seen from a normal angle the top half of the eye would have been obscured unless the fox was looking upwards. Having captured this image I zoomed in a little closer for a portrait.

I'm very pleased with this one. The eye contact makes it and this would not have been possible shooting from a higher angle. The catchlights really bring the image to life.

While on the premises I planned to try the panning technique practiced earlier in my studies and decided a fast moving animal was the order of the day. One of the keepers was kind enough to repeatedly throw food into the otter enclosure ensuring that one of the otters would be running after it. I selected a viewpoint with the sun almost directly behind it, a low iso and a slowish shutter speed to ensure a good amount of movement was captured. 

What amazed me with this image is how incredibly still the otters head is, despite the obvious movement of the rest of his body. He certainly has his eyes on the prize! I don't know if I could have captured this image without the practice during the chapter "photographing movement". 

One of the issues that Andy Rouse kept on insisting on was that it wasn't always necessary to have the light behind you when shooting. Sometimes a really pleasing effect can be obtained by shooting directly into the light. Again, I couldn't wait to try this technique and when a harvest mouse was brought out I took up a suitable position, selected aperture priority at f4 to blur the background and then set the exposure compensation to -2 to deliberately underexpose the frame. I had to manually hold the lens hood tilted very slightly to cut down on lens flare. Again, I'm really pleased with how this image has turned out, the halo of light was just what I was after and there is just enough detail in the frame to see what the actual subject is.

I certainly enjoyed the workshop and would not fail to recommend anything similar to people who may be wondering about it.

A (not so) brief hiatus

A quick look at my assignment submission for "Colour" would have indicated all was not good in my world. Shortly after starting section 4, LIGHT, I put down the camera and didn't pick it up again for some months. Even when I did try to re-start my studies I found myself returning to action way too soon. Far from rediscovering my mojo I lost it again almost immediately. So here we are almost exactly one year down the line and with my troubles far behind me I'm hoping to finish this course within the allotted time. I've spent the last couple of weeks going over the coursework again and collecting my images for the next assignment which I hope will be accepted. Onwards and upwards as "they" say.