Past work
Personal favourites of 2012
This is the first time I have done an end of year round-up and I have to say, I rather enjoyed it. I like to think of myself as a fairly productive photographer but as the months and years roll by, often forget what I have taken in just 12 months.
So, hear they are and I do hope you enjoy my recap and, if you’ve never done something like this before, why not give it a try?! It’s sure to bring nack some wonderful memories and, perhaps, point out those subjects that you need another stab at.
Realising that many of you are photographers and that I often get emails requesting technical data, I have included this in the caption so hope you find this useful. However, as I have said previously, please don’t get too bogged down with gear and shutter speeds. Being out there, whatever the weather and with whatever equipment you own, is the key to witnessing and recording nature in all it’s forms.
Barn owl.
I had been working on these owls for some time on private land on the Isle of Sheppey. On each visit, I would park my 4×4 in more or less the same spot and so they became quite used to my presence. On this particular occasion it perched on an oil drum opposite me and thinking that, perhaps, it might fly past my window to one of it’s favourite perches, I pre-focused on a spot approximately 6 feet from me so that the autofocus wouldn’t have to move too far to lock on.
Nikon D300, 300mm f2.8, iso 800, 1/800 sec. f3.5, handheld.
European bison crossing railway track
I led a tour to Eastern Poland in February where we enjoyed near perfect snowy, bright conditions. Marek Kosinski, our guide, had noticed that the herd were making their way to a railway embankment which they would probably climb and then walk over the railway track. It was a good 10 minute fast-paced hike but worth it when all of us were in position just as they crossed.
Nikon D300, 300mm f2.8, iso 280, 1/2000 sec. f5.6, Manfrotto 055XB, Manfrotto 501 HDV head.
Greylag geese in territorial dispute
Spring on the marshes is a special time of year when lapwing, redshank, avocet and geese, amongst others, are vying for attention and squabbling with competing males. This par had been chasing one another both on and off the water for some time and when they took to the air it was enough for me to keep them in the frame, such was their speed and acrobatics!
Nikon D300, 300mm f2.8, 1.4x tele-converter, iso 800, 1/5000 sec. f6.3, handheld.
Short-eared owl
Short-eared owls are not all that tolerant of other owl species so it came as no surprise that once they took up residence on the same spot as the barn owls, the latter soon disappeared! I have an adage. “If you’re not there, it won’t happen!” In other words, if you don’t put yourself in situations, regardless of the light or time of day you may lose out on capturing a one-off image. This was a case in point. The forecast was for wet and windy but I drove the 15 miles, anyway, just to see if anything turned up and I always love spending time on the marshes. The weather was horrendous with strong winds and hail. The owls were clearly tucked up. Sheltering. After an hour, the dark, brooding clouds moved on, the sun came out and the shorties hunted for a full 30 minutes, just metres from my car!
Nikon D300, 300mm f2.8, 1.4x tele-converter, iso 800, 1/1600 sec. f8, handheld.
Storm clouds over the Sheppey Crossing
Just as above, the weather looked far from promising but I went regardless. For 90 minutes the clouds morphed into wonderful formations. It would have been foolhardy to use a tripod as the conditions were changing so rapidly. I had never before, or since, witnessed a cloud spectacle quite like I did that afternoon. Biblical!
Nikon D300, 12-24mm @ 19mm, iso 200, 1/50 sec. f10, handheld.
Cattle grazing on the North Kent Marshes at sunrise
Cattle are an essential part of the management process, here, producing areas that provide ideal breeding conditions for such species as redshank, meadow pipit and skylark. It was one of those pefect mornings. Still and misty with the sound of birdlife all around. I guess you could say I was simply in the right place at the right time.
Nikon D300, 70-200mm f2.8 @ 150mm, iso 200, 1/200 sec. f14, Manfrotto 055CX3, Markins M10 ball head.
Dragonfly on the North Kent Marshes at sunrise.
It was a beautiful, still dawn on the marshes when I went searching for dragonflies. Determined not to produce straight record shots, which say little about the environment in which they live, I went about producing a more pictorial and contextual image in order to impart onto the viewer the kind of morning I was experiencing.
Nikon D300, 12-24mm @ 14mm, iso 560, 1/40 sec. f16, handheld.
Sea mist sunset
I was leading a workshop at Dungeness when we had the most magnificent sunset. I, like the others, began shooting boats silhouetted against the setting sun until I turned 180 degrees and saw the simplest of compositions, more powerful than those I had composed moments earlier.
Nikon D300, 28-105mm @ 127mm, iso 200, 1/3 sec. f16, Manfrotto 055CX3, Markins M10 ball head.
Swirling stream
Working in the Dark Peak region of the Peak District, I avoided shooting wider scenes, instead looking for details. Hard to do in autumn when there is so much colour surrounding you! I came across this small waterfall and branch that dissected the image and attached an ND filter in order to create the swirl.
Nikon D300, 28-105mm @ 48mm, iso 200, 13 secs. f16, ND X16 filter, Manfrotto 055CX3, Markins M10 ball head.
Saffron-drop bonnet mushroom in beechwood
I had spent several days shooting autumnal scenes in a very small area of beechwood and became more and more fascinated by the symbiotic relationship between the miniature and the gigantic. With this in mind I strove to illustrate this as best I could.
Nikon D300, 105mm f2.8 Micro, iso 200, 3 secs. f8, Manfrotto 055CX3, Markins M10 ball head.
I would like to say a big thank you to all of you that have taken the time to read my blog and, or, follow me on facebook. To my workshop and tour guests and, generally, for supporting my work over the last year. I look forward to meeting some of you, again, in 2013 as well as seeing new faces and wish you all a happy and fulfilling New Year.
Should you have time, do let me know in Comments which is your fasvourite!
Dragonfly morning
Although photographed over a month ago, I have only just got round to processing these and thought that it would make a relatively interesting post to show them as a set as opposed to, more often than not, singling out a stand-out image.
My objective that morning was to find and photograph a dew laden dragonfly. Suitable conditions for these kind of images in the form of breathless, wet mornings don’t occur too often, here, on the North Kent marshes where the, seemingly, ever-present breeze has so often put pay to many a potential morning.
Having located a good specimin and set up my tripod, my eye was caught by a scene that was looking better and better as the sun rose. I was reluctant to move my tripod which was not only in position for photographing the dragonfly when the light picked up a little but was, also, in very deep mud! I picked up my camera and composed the image and since I was shooting into the light, I was confident I would have a sufficient shutter speed, aperture combination, enabling me to hand-hold the camera while at the same time provide adequate depth of field. While shooting, I was keeping a close-eye on the dragonfly, waiting for the light, having learnt over the years never to do so much that you take your eye off the ball, or dragonfly in this case!
I couldn’t decide which of the 3 I preferred most. Each having it’s own mood. Which is yours?
The sun, eventually, became too bright to continue and, anyway, it was now perfect for the dragonfly.
Nikon D300, 200mm with PN-11 extension tube, 1/100 sec. f8, iso 280, Manfrotto tripd, Markins ball head.
I was determined to photograph the dragonfly in such a way that it gave the viewer the feeling of being there, thereby resisting shooting portraits which do little to stir the soul or give any clues as to the habitat in which it was photographed. Here I was, on the marshes, the ground and surrounding spider’s webs, soaked with dew with the jewel like wings of the dragonfly sparkling in the morning sun. This is what I wanted to convey.
I rarely shoot without a tripod but there are times when it’s just not practical or, in this case, when it interrupts your fluidity. Nikon D300, 12-24mm @ 14mm, iso 560, 1/40 sec. f16.
Spring round-up
With some of the worst weather experienced in the UK for many a year, it seems an age since we had those still warm days of early spring. Here, in North Kent, it has been wet, wet, wet and windy! Not ideal conditions for plant and insect work, or for birds and mammals come to that. I have attempted to get out and shoot as and when I can as well as holding numerous workshops and sorting through 100′s of unedited images that have been lying idle on my hard drives. Here’s a round-up of my work over the last couple of months.
A sunrise workshop at Reculver was arranged at the last moment to coincide with low tide. Seven of us met in the car park at dawn and made our way down onto the beach where we photographed the sun rising against the sillhouted 13th century towers.
Reculver at sunrise
Cow parsley at sunrise
Wood sorrel. My favourite of all woodland flowers.
While shooting short-eared owls from a hide on the North Kent Marshes, this hare ran around a pond infront of me and came within 3m, sat and nibbled for a good few minutes. After which, it ran back around the pond again! It was as if it was checking me out and decided to snack when it got here!
Grey heron
The images above and below were taken on a breathless, chilly morning in April when marshland birds were noisily proclaiming territories and fighting off rivals, as was the case of the greylag geese, below.
Bluebells started to emerge in nearby woodlands and rather than wait until they were in full flower, I decided to capture an individual in bud. When they are that small and close to the ground, a nagging breeze becomes less of an issue.
Big kid, really. 41 going on 11!
It's been done a million times but that doesn't stop me from attempting this type of image, from time to time. Strange looks from passer's by as you stand there nodding with your camera pressed to your face!
A scene such as this of bluebells flowering in a beechwood lends itself perfectly to the panoramic format where a standard ratio would have included too much sky. A Nodal Ninja head was used and the five images stitched together using PtGui software.
Without such a head, which sets the camera back onto it's nodal point, close-up wide-angle images such as this are not possible due to parallax.
It was a beautiful evening and with the weather as it was, there was no way I was going to leave until I had made the most out of the opportunity. An evening such as this may not be around for another year. I was right!
A wildflowers workshop was held in rather damp conditions but, as is so often the case with photographers, they used the conditions to their advantage, shooting raindrops on grass blades and cowslips.
Nikon D300, 105mm f2.8 Micro, 5T Nikon close-up filter, iso 400, 1/20 sec. f8.
Photographed in a favourite "quiet" wood of mine, in the middle of nowhere, which lacks an essential ingredient that all nature reserves should be without. A car park!
We enjoyed a fabulous evening on my last Dungeness workshop, culminating in shooting silhouettes and me painting the boats with torchlight, well into the night.
Abandoned fishing boat on Dungeness beach
Crab spider with prey
Common twayblade. A much overlooked orchid species but when photographed in the right conditions....
My ongoing project (15 years thus far) to record the beauty of the North Kent Marshes, continues.
I spent a good few hours at a site not too far away shooting lady orchids. Aside from the usual portraits (which you simply cannot resist) I attempted to go for something a little different. Why pack up and go home, just because it gets dark?!
Nikon SB800 held off-camera. Lots of experimentation required here in terms of angle and output.
On Tuesday I’ll be joining fellow nature photographer, Marek Kosinski, in the Carpathian mountains of Southern Poland shooting all manner of subjects, the results of which I’ll be posting here.
Short-eared owls
Short-eared owls are one of my favourite birds and each winter, here, on the North Kent Marshes, we often get them in fairly high numbers. This is entirely dictated by, of course, their food supply being mainly short-tailed field voles. These small rodents have cyclical populations and in turn determine how many “shorties” will be present. On those years (approximately every 7-8) where vole numbers are at their peak, so too are the owls. This year, though not exceptional, was pretty good and a pair took up residence on an area of private rough grassland I had been photographing barn owls on that winter. The 2 rarely mixed. When the barn owls were hunting, shorties were absent and vice versa. Birds of prey are notoriously territorial (for good reason!) and so, I guess, it wasn’t that surprising. I’d spent a couple of months photographing barn owls, the results of which can be seen here, and so when the shorties began to stake claim on the area, I was keen to get some images.
Initially, I would visit at all times of the day and weathers. It was soon apparent, however, that they were far more active from midday on and significantly less so in the morning so I decided to concentrate on that part of the day and shoot other subjects at first light instead. I used a combination of a semi-permanent wooden hide, dome hide and my 4×4 which really proved it’s worth during wet weather when access to the site would have been nye on impossible!
Photographed from my wooden hide which was placed in a dip to reduce it's height.
They would use certain parts of the field more than others for a period of time until, I guess, they exhausted the food source, and so, for the following 2 images, I set up a dome hide adjacent to a hawthorn. I’m not keen on using fabric hides in such exposed areas. It doesn’t matter how well you peg one of these down, they just act like a sail and if the guy ropes hold, the hide poles themselves, don’t! But, sometimes, there is no alternative. On occasion, I have used a hide framework made of dexion with a Fensman hide cover thrown over it which is far more stable. Ultimately, you simply can’t beat a solid wooden hide.
Keeping a watchful eye on passer's by.
I just love the way the evening light filters through their feathers.
The very same hawthorn that the barn owls would use.
The two images below came as a result of slowly and at intervals, driving my 4×4 down the rough track where they were hunting. I stopped a good 100m from them but then the wind picked up, hail started to fall and the owls took cover. After about 45 minutes, the wind subsided and the sun shone, providing ideal hunting conditions for them.
Short-eared owl flying against a backdrop of hawthorn blossom.
My favourite image of this species to date taken moments after the above. It flew around my car and then towards me. The 300mm f2.8 fitted to my D300 had trouble keeping focus due to the background and so I did so manually until the last moment. Out of 6 shots this was the sharpest and the one with the nicest wing position.
Nikon D300, 300mm f2.8 AFS, 1/1600 sec. f8, iso 800.
About Robert Canis
Robert Canis is a professional photographer specialising in the natural world.
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