July: month in review
July: a whole bunch of stuff from a busy month…
Puffin with sand eels
Sony A9ii | 400mm f/6.3 1/3200s ISO 1000
What’s this month’s image? It’s a puffin. with a catch of sand eels taken on the Isle of May earlier in July. I also like that the googly eyes give the sand eels have a look of alarm and surprise.
Did you do anything to it? There’s generally not much to be done with wildlife images, but the scene here had a large dynamic range. I was shooting into the light, meaning that the highlights on the sea were incredibly bright and the bird itself was in quite deep shadow. The highlights, therefore, needed to be dragged down and the shadows raised raised quite aggressively. Technically speaking, what’s impressive here is just how clean the image is given the higher ISO and the extent to which the shadows have been lifted.
What’s it doing here? I don’t do very much wildlife, so it’s a pleasant surprise when I do get a half decent nature image. We do, however, have a good number of wildlife photographers in the club and as visiting speakers. From I’ve managed to pick up there are broadly three approaches to wildlife photography.
The first is what is broadly referred to as ‘pay and display’. Essentially the photographer pays to access a hide or a location where there’s a reasonable expectation of seeing the animals. The probability of success is typically enhanced by the use of bait or feeders. While ‘pay and display’ is occasionally referred to with a touch of disdain, there’s no guarantee that the animals will play ball and, even if they do, the photographer still needs the wit and technique to capture the image. My squirrel images were taken in such a set up.
At the other end of the spectrum are those dedicated souls who do their own research and fieldwork, set up their own hides and attempt to capture wildlife in its natural environment. I can’t help but admire the patience and dedication of these hardy souls who spend days, weeks and in many cases months and even years in pursuit of these projects. From my own perspective, this requires a degree of patience that I simply don’t possess.
Somewhere between the two is a middle ground, where you avoid the need for baiting or tracking by heading to a place where you can literally fall over the wildlife. If puffins are your thing, then the Isle of May should be on your list. Between April and mid-August it’s home to 46,000 pairs of nesting puffins, so you’d need to be really unlucky not to see a few. Regular boat trips from Anstruther make this a fun and relatively easy day out.
Completing the picture is the fact that puffins are really very photogenic and fun little birds. You’ll need a longish lens (but not ridiculous) to get decent images and taking shots of stationary birds is pretty straightforward. It’s a different matter when they’re in flight, because they are bloody quick! That said, if you can pan then by using a high shutter speed and a high burst rate it’s possible to get some entertaining shots. There are a couple of examples below.
Have you been up to much else? Looking back, July has been a busy old month. We had a trip out to see the Martin Parr exhibition at Pollok and also caught some Coos on camera. We also managed a few days down in Berwick-upon-Tweed, travelling via St Abbs and spending a very pleasant morning wandering along Spittal beach. In addition to the puffins, Anstruther itself is quite pretty while I also managed a trip down to the beach at Troon to catch some of the kitesurfers and windsurfers.
There have also been a few club outings, including Overtoun which I’m sure we’ll be revisiting in the Autumn. CoDI was also back with preview shows for the Fringe, which also gave me an opportunity to explore parts of Edinburgh that have been on my list for a little while. At the end of the month, while Helen was sunning herself in Madeira, I braved the best of the Scottish Summer to explore Grey Mare’s Tail and Loch Skeen, a location I’ve wanted to photograph for some time. Samples of all are below.
Finally, I’m still enjoying putting together small panels of images. This one is from an afternoon spent at the very wonderful Glasgow Botanic Gardens.
Glasgow Botanic Gardens.
Fujifilm X-T5 | XF 70-300mm, various settings
Coming Up
Edinburgh Fringe, CoDI and Dumfries and Galloway beckon. I’ve also been called for jury service, which isn’t a photo opportunity…
