Working on a project or two...

Greenfinch

A new year and new challenges - well not quite. No I have been working on photographing birds in the garden which hopefully will fulfil at least two projects, perhaps three. I have written about this before but this year I want to concentrate on just a few overall projects and then use the resultant product to service a number of different projects - that way I can concentrate on the photographs rather than think that this could do for this competition and so on.

Greenfinches and Goldfinches on feeders

Well the past few days have certainly fallen into this plan. So I have been freezing myself at home, and sitting in the warmth making some interesting photographs. Very rewarding.

Wren

I have not been neglecting the book project either. I have spent the past few days colour correcting the selected images ( I managed to cut the number down to 50, in part due to the problems of CMYK printing/colour correction.) One interesting thing that has come out of this is that most bird photographs seem to need little colour correction for a CMYK printer - not sure why that is - hope it doesn't mean I have been going about this thing the wrong way. Only time will tell!

Reed Bunting

One final thing - Flickr. I have become more obsessed by this over the past few days. This is just wrong and I am going to reduce my time spent using Flickr. Like any social network system you can loose yourself in this. That being said there are some outstanding photographs on Flickr, hopefully mine can be included in them in some small way

Working in the back garden...

Blackbird - Enderby.

It really is a winter wonderland - I'm really thankful that I can work at home rather than trudging into the office. Anyway, after doing some shopping I settled down for a days shot in the warmth of hearth and home. Whilst this was satisfying in itself it had two other purposes. The first is to make some work for this years British Wildlife Photography Awards - particularly the Wildlife in My Backyard category. The second is for my ARPS portfolio. I have still to finalise the portfolio - not a problem as I don't want to submit it until the end of the summer - so I can keep my options open. One final thing on this I am also going to use this work to enter ther RPS Nature group annual exhibition - so not bad for one set of photographs.

A bit of a set back...

Bradgate Park

Well I will have to make do with being short listed for the British Wildlife Awards. This in itself is good but it always leaves you with the nagging question - why was I not selected for the exhibition? This is where competitions are really really bad. You have no idea why you were not chosen apart from the usual banal '...very high standard...hard choice...' and so on. Now I know it would be impossible to provide feedback of any value. An example of worthless feedback is the card that Practical Photography sends out with rejected photographs. This card has a number of boxes outlining the reason for rejection -none of which really provides any real feedback and you just get the feeling that some office junior has been given the task of ticking the box.

This is not a complaint about the whole process as I know it would be impossible for the organiser to provide such a service - indeed this is not the purpose of the competition. I am also very aware that the whole process beyond a certain level is pot luck and whether you are selected or not is very much a marginal call. In the end the only feedback that you can get is to compare your photographs to the winning photographs. This again is next to pointless as you end being like the definition of a bad general - always fighting the last war not the next one. Are well back to the drawing board.

pause for thought....

I hate waiting...my wife says I have no patience and she is right I don't. The reason why I mention this is because I am waiting on the results of two submissions I have made to two different competitions - the British Wildlife Awards and the Projected Image. I have mentioned both of these before but I don't know why but waiting for the results from both submissions is driving me nuts. I know I have been short listed for wildlife awards - but that doesn't mean anything. Will I be selected or rejected? The same goes for the Projected Image. I just can't concentrate on doing anything other than worrying about these two submissions - its driving me nuts!!!!

On a slightly connected note I was going to attend a one day garden photography course run by the RPS at Kew Gardens in September. However, this has been cancelled - lack of numbers so I decided to get a refund on my train tickets. They don't do refunds so I have slightly changed my travel times and will spend the day going around galleries etc. I'm still working on an itinerary but there looks like a lot of interesting exhibitions so it should be an interesting day out. So what is the connection you might ask? Will I am thinking about entering the garden photographer of the year competition and this was going to help. Another frustration.

What this has meant is that I have had little inspiration to take any photographs so I have spent my time catching up - something I have written about earlier. The photograph above is the result of this catching up.

Disappointment and Hope...

Life is a very strange bedfellow. It smothers you with kisses and then kicks you in the balls - sometimes at the same time. I started this week feeling okay then I received my Dear John from the organisers of the Landscape Photography of the Year competition. We have all had these...its been very hard...very high standards etc..etc. You can almost hear the '...its not you its me...' line. Anyway, they rejected my submission. Much chuntering and cursing by myself.

Then this minoring - at 04:59hrs?? I received the kisses. I have been short listed for the British Wildlife Photography Awards. Now I am aware there is no guarantee that any of my photographs will make the final selection let alone win any prize but is is a positive step forward. Needless to say my spirits are very high this morning - but there is still a lot of hard work to be done. I have to ensure that the Hi Res Tiffs and their corresponding RAW files have the correct URN and then copy them onto disk and so on. So my fingers are crossed along with many other cliche I may wish to use. It's turning out to be a memorable photographic year for me - long may it continue.

BWPA Submitted

Deer Park - Marloes

Well that's another set of photographs submitted. Now onto the next submission. Well it is a busy time at the moment. I have submitted photographs to the Landscape Photographer of the Year and now the British Wildlife Photography Awards (BWPA). The next is the Projected Image Exhibition with the RPS. All these competitions are very much the luck of the draw. You try and develop string images that meet the brief and then hope they catch the eye of the judges. There is no feedback nor evolution as you might get with a client.

Perhaps the best way to illustrate this is the photograph above. I have submitted this as part of the Habitat category of the BWPA and nothing unusual about that I suppose apart from I had forgotten that there was a Habitat category until this morning when I paid my dues and submitted the work. So a quick rummage through my photographs came up with three that I thought fitted the brief. No long deliberation as I had with other photographs but a quick selection process and that was it. Does this mean it has less chance of sucess than the others? I don't know and this demonstartes the random nature of the process. Still it is fulfilling just going through the process and so onto the next submission.

The hard work begins

Having had a couple of days away from my Northumbria photographs now the hard work begins. I have selected around 200 images of birds that I may wish to make into photographs. However, I will not be making 200 photographs - I suspect no more than 50. This means that I have to be really strict in what I select - not an easy thing to be.

So what am I looking for? Well first I am looking for photographs that I could use in my ARPS submission. Second I am looking for any photographs that might just sneak into my BWPA selection. Finally, any other photograph that I just like - however this is unlikely as they would have been selected for the first two.

After this I am going to work through my non natural history images - but that is another story!

Digital Manipulation....

No.1 - Original Raw File

What a strange place the digital world is. I was preparing my selection for the British Wildlife Photographic awards before I finalised my selection I let my wife view them. This is always a good idea as it allows me to verify my selections and get feedback. We came to one photograph that, whilst was strong could just be a bit stronger. The photograph had come from a series shot in a few seconds so I had a number of very close variations. Sure enough there was a photograph that filled the brief so much better (No.1). Having checked the brief again I went to work processing the image to make it an acceptable photograph.

At this point it is worth noting the rules on digital manipulation:

"...Digital processing, such as contrast, selective exposure and colour adjustments, removal of dust marks, and sharpening is acceptable. Digital manipulation, including composite images and the addition and/or subtraction of objects is prohibited. Images should retain their naturalism and integrity...." - Entry Restrictions:

No.2 - Content Aware Scaling

A facility within Photoshop CS4 is 'Content Aware Scaling' (CAS) - this is an ability to remove areas of the image that are very similar whilst maintaining the size and integrity of the main items within the image. It is a very meat piece of software but it drives a coach and horse through the digital manipulation - or does it? When you compare No.2 and No.3 you will see what I mean. No.2 has scaling applied

No.3 - Conventional Cropping

What the CAS has done is remove a slither of sea between the two main birds in the photograph. By doing this it has made the photograph far more impactive. (This is very difficult to see on the photographs on the blog but in real life it is noticeable.) However, this is nothing compared to the crop of the original (compare No.1 with No.3) and yet cropping has been part of photography since the first Fox-Talbot negative. Now these two images are subtle and there will no doubt be much more blatant applications of CAS. It does, however, go to the false argument that a photograph never lies. This conceit has been around for as long as there has been photography and it is totally bogus. Photography only records what the photographer wants it to record. he/she makes all the choices and only shows the viewer what he/she wants them to see. Photography is a con - it always has been - it just that now it is so much easier for the '...Average Joe...' to partake in the con.

So what will I do? Well I will submit No.3 but in the knowledge that No.2 is a better photograph (in my view) - I just wonder if other contestants will be as conscious of the dangers?

Puffins Puffins and Puffins...

Best laid plans etc. I didn't expect to get round to working on the Skomer photographs for a day or so. However, the sorting out of the Landscape Photographer of the Year submission was a lot easier than I thought - the reason for this that I broke the short list down into individual shortlists for the categories. Once I did this the selection seemed to fall into place. I am leaving it a day or so to see if I want to change anything.

So back to puffins. They are a wonderful and charming bird - perhaps the most photogenic creature there is? Maybe, maybe not. However if you want to up close and personal then Skomer is one of the best places for this. The birds are so unconcerned by the people they walk quite happily amongst the crowds on their way to feeding their chicks. Click here to see the latest photographs.

I had set myself two aims for the shoot on Skomer. The first was take some really close portrait shots - not difficult given the birds behaviour. However the second proved much more difficult. I wanted to capture the birds in flight. This was proving unsuccessful until I walked back to the landing site on the harbour at South Haven. Here the birds just zip past you but without their nervousness they have at the Wick. Only later did I discover that this too didn't work out. After a lot of head scratching and reading the manual I found that the 1D's focusing only works really well with lenses with an aperture of f2.8 or larger. The 100/400 zoom has an max aperture of f4.5 - this clear contributed to the high failure rate. Big lesson. Fortunately I had sufficient images to satisfy me. However it was a painful lesson.

Whilst on the island there was a camera from the welsh language channel S4C. It was fascinating to hear the Welsh language spoken as a first language. It is strange and very beautiful language to listen to. I latter spoke to the presenters about the welsh language and the fact that there were so many common English nouns. They reassured me that when specking welsh they didn't use the common English noun but rather the welsh. This was rather undercut when a young volunteer spoke to them and very quickly it was clear that she certainly didn't appear to have difficultly using English nouns in the welsh language. Of course this is no scientific sample, and also o reflection on the girl in question, but I still have difficulty believing that common English nouns would be replaced by welsh ones. You only have to examine the development of the french language to see how English creeps in even when officially frowned on. This doesn't get away from the fact that the welsh langauge, when spoken in a relaxed manner, is a beutiful, poetic langauge of rythms and harmonies that english simply cannot approach.

One final thing. I watched the programme they were making the other day and I say my tripod leg on the screen. Fame at last!

I have a plan...

Broad Haven beach

I have a plan. Over the next few weeks there are a number of competitions that I am planning to submit work to. This means I will have to restrict the work I will undertake and I am going to have to make a plan. So here is the plan. I will not work on the bird photography from the Pembroekshire shot until I have completed the submission for the Landscape Photographer of the year. This also means that I will not make any other photographs from the Pembroke shoot than I have already done. To see the whole shot to date click here. This doesn't mean I will be returning to this set of images it just means I have selected what I consider to be the best photographs for the competition. There are only so many sunset photographs you can choose for a submission.

After the Landscape Photographer I am going to work on the British Wildlife awards. This should coninside with the completion of the photographs of bird in Pembrokeshire and my next big shoot in Northumbria. However, the date of the submission for this is very close to when I get back from Northumbria so I am not sure how many photographs from Northumbria will be included.

After this there is the projected image exhibition with the RPS. I can't recall the closing date for this but I think it is some time in August. I am hoping that the work I have done on the first two submissions will help me with this.

After this there is the Portfolio two submission to work on. This is sometime in Sept/October. Again the plan is that there previous work can be rolled up into this - thus reducing my work - afterall I would love to get out and make some new images.

Young Dunnock - will it survive the day?

I know I have been thinking about the ARPS subject to be something to do with the Birds of the British coast or something similar.  However, over the past few days I have spent sometime in my own garden capturing the local birds.   Now this may become a possible subject for two very good reasons:

• First I don't have to travel hundreds of miles to capture the subjects;  
  
• Second, and this is perhaps the more important point, for many people this is the only exposure they have to the wildlife all around them.  
  

Because of this it tends to be overlooked for more exotic settings - such as Bempton (Bempton exotic?  Well maybe not but at least I don't have to get up in the middle of the night to get there)   This does have potential so I will continue.  To see the other birds captured this weeked click here.

Preparing for Pembrokeshire

Newgale beach

Less than a week to go and I'm off.   To the sun sea and sand of Pembrokeshire.  I know it doesn't have the same ring as Miami or Bondi beach but it is in many way better ( all thought that assumes that I have visited both and I haven't - I just haven't got any inclination to do so).  Anyway back to Pembrokeshire - what is so special?  Well for a start going out of season you usually have the place very much to yourself.  The beaches are broad, wide and as can be seen above golden.  Now the downside, it's Wales and so you have to expect rain and cold weather.  None of these things really bother me.

One of the peculiarities of Pembrokeshire is that it is not really wales at all.  I know this is going to get many Welsh men and women up in arms but in their heart of hearts they know this is true.  Even the locals call it little England.  What does this mean?  Well around the coast and much of the western part of the county all the towns and villages have English names.  Whilst I was there last year I undertook a place name survey and the south and west of the country is all English names.  The further north you go the more welsh the place gets.  Even the local accent is different - more west country than west Wales.  So why is this?   Well I think we have to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Edward the first (always worth blaming for such things!) who suppressed the Welsh principality and planted south west Pembrokeshire.  Now I am sure there is lot more complicated reasons than that but this will do for now.

Photographically Pembrokeshire is a wonderful place.  To see some of the photographs I made last year click here.

So the planning goes on and I can guarantee that all the planning won't make the slightest bit of difference to what I finally produce.  However, there are three projects I really want work whilst I am away.  The first is 'Birds of British Coast', the second is Landscape Photographer of the Year  and finally the 'British wildlife Photograhy Awards'  (in truth the first and last are very much the same thing) I know that there is great potential to add to all of these - lets just hope that things work out alright.

Bempton Report

Is the photograph worth the risk?

It was sunny, hot and wonderfully chaotic - by the time I came away it was filling up with a lot of people.   Welcome to Bempton reserve on a hot and sunny Sunday.   Hot tip - avoid the place if you can on Sunday, and I would suspect Saturday as well.   By 10am when I called it a day there was no place at the best spots for photographs.  Fortunately I had got there at 6 am and so had a much better opportunity to capture the birds.

I have to say it was somewhat anti climatic.  This was due in part to the fact that few of the eggs had hatched and so the only opportunity was to take photographs very similar to the week before.   I found the most interesting birds were the tree sparrows and swallows.  I kept chasing after the kestrel but due to a combination of being in the wrong place, i.e. down wind and the mobbing by other birds I wasn't able to get the shots I wanted.  Maybe next time.

I found that the most interesting photographs I made are not of the sea birds but of the birds on the land of the reserve - an example is the tree sparrow and its newly fledged young.  To see more photographs click here.

Tree Sparrow

Now for the crowds.  Perhaps I am somewhat mad, I have noted this already, but the best time of day to get any reasonable photographs is first thing in the morning.  This is not just because of the light but also the crowds.  I can understand bird watchers or the curious member of the public not realising this but not serious photographers.   As I said before by 10am the places was really filling up, and one of the most conspicuous group who arrived at this time was a number of photographs with very long lens.  

Now I am in no position to say anything about this as I have 2 1D's with long lens attached, one on a large tripod.  However, I made the effort to get up early to get the best chance of a shot.  So why did these photographers not do the same?   After all some of the equipment cost as much as mine, so why not turn up early enough to make the most of this equipment?  I'm sure there are a whole range of reasons for this but I suspect that some of the reasons may not be the most charitable to the individual.  This is unfair as it does mean that I have the reserve to mostly to myself so why complain?  

One final thing on this subject.   If you wished to apply a feminist analysis there did seem to be an awful lost of men with very long lenses.  Boys and their toys I suppose.

And finally - fishing.   I was walking back towards the visitor centres when I saw two men with climbing equipment and some large poles.  Now I thought that they were RSPB staff members going down the cliffs for surveying purposes.  Little did I know that they were local fisher men who also are keen rock climbers.   As I stood and watched them decent the 300 foot + cliffs I just couldn't understand the need for this.  Surely the fish are just as good further around the coast where you don't have to climb down some of the biggest cliffs in England.  Each to their own?

So I won't be back at Bempton before the end of the month.   It will be interesting to see how things have progressed.

The problem with puffins

Puffin - Bempton

Puffin - Inner Farne Island

Puffin - Skomer island

First off some house keeping.   I took 2485 images this morning out of which I kept 418 which is a 17% hit rate - about right for the type of photography I was doing today.  I think I have got some very interesting images that I think I can make into first class photographs.  It is noticeable that my standards have risen markedly over the past few visits to Bempton.   Images that may well have been kept on my first visit only get the most cursory examination before being deleted.  This is especially true of Gannet images.   After a while one image of a Gannet flying overhead tends to look like the next.  This is progress and I have to say I am happy with the situation.

This brings me nicely to the question of Puffins.   The RSPB makes a big thing about the puffins at Bempton and yes there are a relatively large number of them.  However, the views are to say the least restricted.  They spend most of their day sitting on the chalk cliffs which on a very bright day posses some real problems.  Also even with a very powerful lens the resultant image is not that impactive.   To show this compare the the three photographs. I think the the Bempton is a distant third of the three.  

So what does this mean?  Well, first I have try harder to make the photographs more interesting.  One idea may well be to try High Dynamic Range (HDR)- the Bempton photograph has a shutter speed of 1/8000 th so this give plenty of scope to implement a HDR experiment.   This, however, is incidental to the main problem.  Puffins are just not as accessible at Bempton than at the Farnes or Skomer.  Can't wait to visit both site in the next month.

Boy am I tired

The first images out of the card...well sort of

I am officially mad.  Yes Mad!   The reason for this insanity?   Well I went to bed at 8 o Clock last night so that I could get up at 2am.  Why? you may well ask.   I wanted to get to Bempton Cliffs for dawn.  However, this is not the depth of my insanity - oh no.  Instead of waking up at 2am I woke at 12:30am and was on the road by 1:30am - 30 minutes before I was going to get up.  Was it worth it?   Yes it was and I would do it again - just not tomorrow!    I'm currently uploading the files as I write this and so I might be able to publish one or two today...then again this may well have to wait until tomorrow.   I may be mad but I feel very happy with my madness.

Fineshade Woods

Just finished culling the images that I made today at Fineshade Woods, Northampton.  Over the next day or so I will start to produce some photographs - to date I have managed to make four and as usual you can see them by clicking here.

Greater Spotted Woodpecker - Fineshade Woods

Best laid plans...

Well I was supposed to get out and make some landscape photographs.   It was supposed to be thunderous this afternoon, hopefully with some magnificent clouds to increase the dramatic nature of the photographs.  Well, needless to say the weather didn't materialise leaving me with flat light and a grey sky.  No use for what I wanted to achieve.  So back to capturing the birds in the garden - not a bad way to spend an afternoon.  Just hope the weather picks up and produces some beautiful light and powerful skies.  However, this is england so expect another day of flat and unteresting light.  La de da.

Reflection on Bempton...so far

I have just finished working on the photographs from my last session at Bempton.  I have to say overall I am very pleased with what I have captured.  I have created a new collection in Lightroom called Bempton and this allows me to review all of my photographs taken over the last two years.   This was created for two reasons:  firstly, to review the work to date, what trends have I got in the photographs?  What have I missed? What do I need to improve on?   

The second is perhaps more important.  I have just received my first copy of 'The Iris'.  This is the magazine of the RPS Nature Group.   It is a really interesting read, not for its editorial style but rather for the information it contains about RPS distinctions.  This is where the Bempton collection comes in.  I am going to submit a portfolio for my ARPS next year and I need a working title.  To date I have come up with two working titles:  'Birds of the British Coast' and 'Birds of Bempton Cliffs'.   Now these are just working titles but they do allow me to start to structure any submission I might make.

With this in mind it is clear that the Bempton collection falls into both title headings.  What I need to do now is be very dispassionate about the photographs of Bempton, not at all easy but a worth while exercise and try and answer the three questions set above.   So what are the trends?  To date I have captured a large number of Gannet photographs, perhaps I might consider 'Gannets of Bempton cliffs'?  Maybe, but this is not what I am doing at the moment.  One noticeable trend is that the I have very few photographs of Kittiwakes, Guillemots and Razorbills flying.  I also have a total lack of Puffins.  This starts to give me a shooting list for my next visit.  Also I have no chick or young bird photographs - again another add to the list.

So the process has started.  I won't really commit to this until after the BWPA photographs are submitted, again these two work hand in hand so that is a bonus.   Lets see what the months bring.  One final thing.  The photograph of the two Gannets above is unlikely to succeed in any submission to the nature group for an ARPS as it is too interpretive rather than factual - well that is what I think at the moment.  Hopefully I will find that this is not the case but we have to wait and see.

Some Early Bempton Photographs

So far I have uploaded over 1700 images - I have still got 3 4Gb cards to go.  This has been one of the most productive days I have ever had.  I really am looking forward to making some fantastic photographs.  Lets just hope my early optimism is well founded.

Just back from Bempton

Just got back from another fantastic day at Bempton Cliffs.   The wind blew and it blew!   The reserve is really special first thing in the morning when you are the only one there.   I have started to upload the files to Lightroom - 9 x 4GB cards and a 2GB card - quite a few images to process - this is the first of many photographs.  God I'm tired.