Blink and you'll miss it...!

Spent a wonderful day today on the top of the cliffs near Dover photographing the resident Peregrine Falcons in the good company of my friend and fellow wildlife photographer Tony Flashman. As soon as we arrived at the local spot we could see the falcons riding the thermals into the prevailing winds.

After shooting a couple of frames handheld the birds quickly dived into the lee of the cliffs out of our view, allowing time to set up the tripod whilst dodging the many tourists who were trying to get photos of the recent landslide. Soon the falcons were back on the wing..!

Despite having considerable focal length (500+ mm) the birds still seemed quite distant, however, it made for some great 'environmental' type of shots, including the many occasions when the falcons were mobbed by the resident gulls. (Click on the images to see slightly larger versions)

The Dog Fight - the Falcon showing prowess in flight against a gull.

Aerobatic masters of display.. 

You can't help but be mesmerised by their agility...

And then for something different... 

Having watched two falcons flying elegantly between the various cliff faces and in and out of the many crags and crevices, eventually the female landed on an outcrop and displayed to her mate who was calling in the air nearby. Within seconds, the male swooped in and mounted the female into a mating embrace, I had a huge smile on my face having just captured the moment in the camera! Below are a couple of images from the sequence..

Steady as it goes...

Got to admire the skill of performing this whilst balancing precariously 

150 feet up on a cliff edge with the male balancing on her back, almost still in flight..! 

A day with a Water vole

I spent a very enjoyable day today in the presence of a couple of Water voles and as well as obtaining a couple of nice images for the library I managed to bag a couple of short movies of these endearing little critters. Here are a couple of examples for you to enjoy!

All the best.

I am a Walrus..! 

You can't help but love these little mammals.. :-) 

All images and video were taken using a Canon 5D MKII

All Content © Brett Lewis Photography 2012

Photography at a Snail's pace..!

This morning was another early start to try and undertake some more macro work whilst the weather was calm. However, when visiting one of my usual sites for damselflies and demoiselle's I was sadly disappointed.. Over a two hour period my friend and I only found a couple and even then they flew off and didn't want to be photographed.

However, not to be beaten I decide to take advantage of the plentiful Amber snails that were around, following an evening of rain. There were also a number of Soldier beetles which also made for good subjects to 'focus' our attention.

Whilst photographing macro subjects may seem straight forward, it's always more rewarding when you try something a little different. In this case I wanted to use the available lighting conditions to bring out the best features in the snails and perhaps inject a little anthropomorphism into the scenes.

I used the diffused sunlight to offer a certain amount of backlighting to show the translucent nature of the molluscs fleshy body against a series of different backgrounds. By shooting into the dense undergrowth I could give the appearance of an almost 'black' background to an image or likewise, into the 'grey skies' to give an almost studio 'white' background as seen in the images below..

Canon 5D MKII, Tripod, Sigma 150mm Macro f2.8,  1/80 @ f11, ISO 2500,  Ambient Light.

Canon 5D MKII, Tripod, Sigma 150mm Macro f2.8,  1/500 @ f8.0, ISO 2500,  Ambient Light.

Furthermore, by angling my camera to an extreme, I was able to give the impression of space in which this snail was almost falling as it explored the single leaf it was 'perched' on.

Canon 5D MKII, Tripod, Sigma 150mm Macro f2.8,  1/250 @ f8.0, ISO 2500,  Ambient Light.

The Soldier beetle spent quite a lot of time 'grooming' itself and it was quite difficult, in the available light, to obtain enough shutter speed to slow down it's actions in order to freeze-frame it and to gain a nice portrait. However by using and ISO of 2500 (Yes 2.5K..!) I was able to use a shutter speed of 1/125 sec at f13 to provide an adequate depth of field in order to capture this image..

So, after what appeared to be a wasted morning actually turned out to be really quite productive with some nice images in the bag and of some subjects that I might otherwise have overlooked. I'm sure there's a moral in that story somewhere..!

Until next time.. Enjoy Yourselves!