spring
Photography workshops in Kent
I have just added 3 new workshops which can be viewed here on the workshops page on my website. They have only been up a short while and already places are being filled so if you’re interested, please get in touch soon. Below is an overview of those added.
Bluebell Photography Walk
Sunday May 1st – 10.00 to 13.00 hrs.
(Group size – 6. 4 places remaining)
To be held at Hucking Estate, a beautiful woodland near Maidstone. Ideal for those wishing to learn how to photograph plants, insects and woodland scenes. Suitable for beginners as well as the more experienced. £30
Kent’s Lady Orchids
Saturday May 14th – 14.00 to 18.00 hrs.
(Group size-6)
The location for this orchid photography workshop is a nature reserve near Garlinge Green, south of Canterbury. I’ll be covering such things as composition, lens selection, exposure and flash. Choice of time has been chosen to avoid the mid-day sun and benefit from the low, late afternoon sunlight. £45
Heathland Sunrise
Saturday August 20th and Sunday 21st – 04.30 to 07.30 hrs.
(Group size-3. 2 places remaining on each day)
Experience the vibrant colours of flowering heath at Kent’s largest heathland, Hothfield Heathlands, near Ashford, at sunrise. Suitable for those of all levels and as the group size is only 3, there’ll be no bustling for the best positions! This really is a time when the most atmospheric pictures are created where an early rise is well rewarded. I will go through my thought process when seeking a composition and the decisions I make when choosing the right lens along with using filters, obtaining the correct exposure and assessing the camera’s histogram. Dew laden cobwebs and dragonflies are other possible subjects £35
Kent’s Wildflowers
Wednesday May 4th – 09.00 to 18.00 hrs.
(Group size-2. 1 place remaining)
A full day of photography in mid and north Kent at various favourite locations hand-picked by myself. This is a great time to experience Kent’s ancient woodlands and Downs and the flowers it harbours. The group size has been kept to just 2 so we can all travel in my car and give you pretty much one-to-one tuition. The price also includes a pub lunch at a an award-winning pub run by a personal friend of mine. £125
As with all my workshops, the price includes unlimited correspondence before and after the day and email review of your images.
Keeping it small
There’s a lot to be said for keeping the subject small. It can say so much more about the species, in this case a lapwing, than a frame filling portrait. But, and it’s a big but, the landscape surrounding it has to be either photogenic or informative or, both. The lighting played an enormous part when, due to the misty sunrise, the landscape was kept simple and shapes softly defined except for the lapwing caught in light. Imagine the same scene taken in the middle of the day when the orange glow would have disappeared and in its place, green!
Nodal Ninja
I’ve been shooting panoramic images for quite some time now by taking a series of pictures and stitching together using software. However, unless you use a specialised tripod head, shoot anything closer than a couple of metres away and you come across a problem known as parallax. This is when subjects in the foreground move in relation to the background as the camera is rotated. To illustrate this, place your finger a foot or so away from you and move your head from side to side. You’ll notice that the background alters as you move. To correct this, the camera needs to be set back to it’s nodal point. In order to obtain the highest resolution as well as ‘depth’ to your image, you will need to shoot a series in portrait format and for this you will need a specialised head. There are several on the market and arguably, no, unarguably the best for single-row panorama’s, is the Nodal Ninja 3 MK11. Why is it the best? (By the way, I’m not being sponsored!) Because it’s incredibly compact, lightweight, and really easy to set up. Paramount if you just add it to your kit as an aside if you are looking for other subjects as well. For those of you interested, click here to be directed to the UK dealer.
Here’s one I did last week on the North Kent Marshes at sunrise. 5.15 to be exact. How I love getting up for spring/summer sunrises! Always worth it when you get there though. Six upright images, stitched using PtGui software.
Nikon D300, 28-105mm at 55mm, iso 200, 1/30th sec. f16, ND Grad 0.6.
Remote badger
There has been a lot of talk over the last few months regarding the use of remote cameras when photographing wildlife but there are times when it quite simply is the only way, especially if your intention is to create a very different perspective on a much photographed mammal. I was at least present when the image was taken, indeed, I did take it. There were no beams or pressure pads, just me, sitting 20m away in a tree hide firing the camera by radio remote.
It’s an image I have had in my mind’s eye for number of years but for one reason or another was unable to achieve it. Having secured a number of close-ups the previous few weeks, I waited till the bluebells were in bloom then over several nights, would arrive at the scene around 6.30pm (1 1/2 hrs before they usually emerge), climb an old hornbeam, clamp the camera and receiver to a branch, cover them in plastic bags, then retreat to my platform. Once a badger emerged, which it did at 8pm, it was simply a case of waiting until it was in the desired position and hoping above all else, that it would remain still long enough so as not to be just a blur. I set the D300 to iso 1600, aperture priority f4.9 with the resulting shutter speed being 3 seconds. Lens used was 12-24mm. So as to keep any disturbance to a minimum, I waited till it was completely dark, content the badgers had wandered off to forage, climbed down from my platform then went home, returning early the next morning to collect the camera. It was carried out in private woodland and with the camera being a good 15 feet up a tree, I was fairly confident it would still be there when I returned!
Last of the meadow sunrise series
A not at all common species that has been in decline throughout its range of central and southern England due to extensive farming practises and ploughing. Fortunately, this particular site is managed by the Kent Wildlife Trust, thereby ‘hopefully’ safeguarding its future for many years to come.
Nikon D2x, 12-24mm at 16mm, 1/10th sec. f16, iso 100, 0.6 ND Grad.
I used a 300mm f2.8 lens here set to f4 with the manfrotto tripod set to ground level. A small reflector placed infront provided fill-in.
I desperately wanted to return, to see if I could come up with new images but most of all, to soak up the atmosphere of an ancient hay meadow in spring, at dawn. Once again, the cuckoo didn’t disappoint.
Quite often I like to reach for my 200mm or 300mm lens, not just to have more control over the backgrounds, but to also give me ample working ditance to avoid disturbing the surrounding vegetation. On mornings such as these, it pays to wear waterproof trousers or a plastic bag to kneel on. there's no fun in spending several hours with wet knees!
Ox-eye daisy
Its name, derives from the Anglo-Saxon words, daeyes and eayes, meaning day’s eye. Its other names include the dog daisy or Marguerite after the French princess who adopted it as her official emblem. It is a herbal remedy for stomach upsets, whooping cough and asthma.
More meadow sunrise
Here’s another from that same morning. When conditions are that good and the sun’s rising so rapidly, I invariably find myself frantically searching for more, stronger images.
Nikon D2x, 28-105mm at 105mm. 1/1000 sec. f5.6, iso 100, ND 0.9 (3 stop) Grad.
Meadow sunrise
A very early start was rewarded with the most beautiful conditions in which to photograph green-winged orchids at Marden Meadow. I arrived at dawn to the sound of my first and sadly up to now, only cuckoo and for the next 2 hours shot a number of compositions. By 7 o clock the sun was too high and so I made my way home while others made their way to work. More will appear here shortly.
Badgers
I’ve been watching over this same badger sett for some 20 years now and have watched and photographed badgers there every year, bar 2. It’s in private woodland so they get very little disturbance, albeit they are just 10 metres from the edge of a field, occasionally used by dog walkers and others taking a short-cut home from work, but generally speaking it’s pretty quiet. 10 years ago I constructed a platform, alongside an old oak where I could get a much better view of this huge sett and of it’s entrance/exit holes. I built it out of dexion and with the sett in a bowl, it gave me an almost eye-level view of them and being a few feet above the top hole also had the advantage of watching without worrying about the wind direction as although they have poor eyesight, their hearing and sense of smell is incredibly acute. With the sett west facing and in a relative clearing, it was quite bright when they emerged which was often around 7.45pm. My window of opportunity however would only last for around 6 weeks, until the end of May, when the trees would be in full leaf, leaving the sett too dark to work in.
Badger scratching
Until recently, the only choice I had in getting photographs of them was to use flash. I would clamp 2 units, a metre or so away from the camera (one as the main light source and the other, closer to the camera, as a fill-in, around 1 stop less than the main.) I would use Fuji Sensia 100 and from 11 feet use an aperture of f5.6, and this was using fairly powerful Metz hammerhead flash units! Unless the site was visited regularly, allowing the badgers to become accustomed to the flash, quite often I would get just one image as the badger would be spooked, only re-emerging when it felt safe enough to do so. But with digital, shooting at high iso’s is now possible with fantastic results and now means I can shoot up until half an hour after sunset. To keep them in view for as long as possible I sprinkled sultanas and raisins around the sett and on the main mound.
Badger emerging
I wouldn’t usually have attempted this kind of image, above, before digital as I felt I was putting too much stress on the animal to emerge, regardless of whether it felt ok to do so. This is especially the case during a dry summer, when they may need to travel distances to find food. However, on this occasion, it took no notice of me whatsoever. Afterall, I was obscured by camouflage netting, a good 2 meres above it’s hole.
I used a NIkon D300 either with a 300mm f2.8 or 70-200 f2.8 lens with iso’s ranging from 800 to 3200 but would, whenever possible use the lowest.
- Badger foraging
Come summer, I will be forced to work on another nearby sett and will again have to resort to flash.
But watching and photographing badgers isn’t just about badgers, it’s the experience of being in a woodland at sunset and into darkness when it really comes alive. Some of my most memorable experiences when photographing badgers haven’t involved badgers at all. I recall, 18 years ago when attempting to photograph a badger crossing a stream, in a remote Welsh valley, a buzzard flying low and fast and just a few metres away between pine trees. I could hear it move through the wind and as if once wasn’t enough, it did it again the following evening too. On that same night, a wren perched less than a metre away and sang. It was almost deafening. I remember watching a vixen move through the woods with a cub held by its scruff in her mouth and more recently, a tawny owl, perching less than 10 feet away, seemingly oblivious to my presence.
Damp morning
I headed out yesterday, pre dawn, to a favourite bluebell wood about 30 mins from where I live, in the hope of getting some panoramic images with the morning sunlight filtering through the trees. But, the weather forecast wasn’t quite as accurate as I had hoped and instead of clear(ish) skies, it was cloudy and rain threatened.
As I entered the Forestry Commission car park, I was greeted by the sight of a rather large herd of fallow deer, that are wild here and totally unlike the park deer of nearby Knole. I hoisted the pack on my pack and headed to the spot where I hoped to get the pictures. But, as you can see from the results, although it brightened a little, it remained heavily overcast turning to heavy rain. Thank goodness I brought my umbrella! In the first image it was so dark, I needed to use the AF on the 28-105 to focus!
Beechwood at dawn
Both images were taken in portrait mode, the first requiring 7 images and the second, 5 and were then stitched using PtGui.
Bluebells in beechwood
Although I didn’t get the pictures I wanted, it is always good to be out early, especially at this time of the year. Seeing the deer in the woodland and listening to the dawn chorus made me forget, albeit only for a short while, just how wet I was!
Bit of fun
All too often, we as photographers become embroiled in trying to achieve the perfect picture and forget why we took up photography in the first instance…..because it’s fun! For the vast majority of my work I use a tripod. Indeed, in order to achieve the highest possible quality when shooting dawn landscapes for instance, a low iso is required with quite often a small aperture, resulting in a lengthy exposure. A tripod is therefore essential. But, sometimes it’s nice, I would say, to release yourself, from the burdens of our 3 legged friends.
The technique of moving the camera during the exposure is as old as the hills but it still makes me smile when I look at the back of the camera to see a rather mundane scene look quite different and ‘painterly.’
Silver birch and ground ivy. This is the most common technique. A smooth up and down movement is required and the length of the exposure along with the speed of you moving the camera, dicatates the amount of streaking.
I personally find that if you apply too much processing, it loses the effect.
Instead of moving the camera vertically, I walked a little towards the scene resulting in this Monet-esque image. You have to play with different shutter speeds to get just the right effect.
About Robert Canis
Robert Canis is a professional photographer specialising in the natural world.
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