Nature Photography - Where it all Began
Shot at 300mm F2.8 ISO 500 1/640s. It is not a traditional shot of a robin in the snow but I was pleased with how this shot of a blackbird in the snow came out.
Decent snowfalls seem to be becoming less common in the East of England so when it does arrive it is always important to make the most of it. After going out on the first day with my Bronica SQ-A I decided the next day to take my telephoto lens and my Nikon D850 for something I do not do too often (especially with the current restrictions), no not digital photography, nature photography. Going for a single walk rarely results in a great set of photos as you often need to go back to a spot time and time again at the right part of the day to capture great images in nature, but I was pleased with the shot of the blackbird you can see above.
Shot at 300mm F2.8 ISO 360 1/800s. This shot of a willow warbler is one of my favourites and closer to the shots I grew up looking at than many of my previous ones.
Despite only going out infrequently, this was my reason for picking up a camera in the first place. Growing up I did a lot of bird watching with my parents and I always looked at the amazing telephoto shots seen online and in books and wanted to get in on the action. I started out with a Fuji bridge camera before upgrading to a DSLR and my primary focus was birds and insects as the UK is lacking in reptiles and larger animals (I will get out on Safari one day!). There is a certain satisfaction in going out on a warm spring or summers days and coming back with great shots a particular animal you either did not expect to get or had been wanting to for some time. I have known some people to have to wait more than thirty years for the image they wanted, and I am not sure I can even begin to imagine how good it must have felt to have finally achieved that.
Shot at 500mm F5.6 ISO 1600 1/500s. This was one of those shots that I did not expect to get on the day. This water vole was remarkably calm about people approaching which allowed me to get close enough to fill the frame.
Nature photography is like landscape photography in that it is an outdoor pursuit where you control very little if nothing of the conditions. You cannot guarantee the lighting, and of course you cannot even guarantee that what you are trying to photograph will either show up or sit still. On my local patch I see a Kingfisher on a frequent basis but seeing as it never sits still for more than a second when I bring the right lens, the hunt for the iconic shot of one perched above a river goes on. As mentioned previously all can do is case locations and return as often as you can to give yourself the best opportunity of coming away with a keeper.
Shot at 105mm F3.3 ISO 100 1/320s. A shot from a holiday to Spain (when you could still go on holiday to Spain!). If you like photographing reptiles then continental Europe is definitely a better place than the UK which only has a handful of species.
The biggest problem (and this is the answer you will get if you ask anyone who pursues this type of photography) is that you can almost never get close enough to your subject, which is why you often use the longest telephoto you can afford to bridge the gap. Cropping works well if you want a record shot but often to get a clearly defined subject with context, yet separation from its surroundings, you need to be filling the frame. Otherwise, you end up with pixelated, muddy visuals. I have not gotten to this point yet, but this is why you will see people dressed head to toe in camo gear, sitting for hours in makeshift hides just to get a single photo.
Shot at at 20mm F2.0 ISO 64 1/640s. One of the experimental shots taken on my super wide angle 20mm F1.8 lens. I will definitely being doing more of this in the coming spring as it creates different images to the more common ones taken with telephoto macro lenses. You can read more about this on my previous blog: https://www.gregoryowain.co.uk/blog/wide-angle-macro
So, the question is: Why do I not do this as often as I used to? The simple answer is that I have moved on to many other different types of photography and now of course I need to focus on those that will make me money. I certainly have no intention of selling my big telephoto lenses, and hopefully later in 2021 I will be able to travel further afield in my spare time to better locations. It would be amazing if nature photography were my full-time gig, but whilst it is a nice dream it is not a realistic one (as it is a dream of many people there is a lot of truly fantastic competition out there and limited ways of making money). Hopefully, I can get the odd article published here and there in the future but for now I am happy to stick with cars (and people once we are able to interact with them again). Still, as with any hobby or passion it is good to find the time for it when you can, and maybe this summer it will make another good excuse to play around with my film cameras. Though if there is more snow this winter, I will definitely make the most of it again.
Are you interested in nature photography? Let me know in the comments down below and you can check out more of my nature images in my portfolio.
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