What weather!

Right, well if you're not currently queuing at a petrol station, then you might be interested in what I've been up to recently.  The weather's been AMAZING! It's so handy that just when I need to step up the pace with the shooting at Bissoe Valley, the sun shines for days on end.  Most days I've been down there twice (sunrise and sunset, sometimes staying until night).  In between, I've been logbooking like a student possessed, writing up all my shoots and research and preparing my book.

Oh yeah, and I've hit the 60 shoot mark.  I think the most shoots I've ever done for an assignment is 20 (second year negotiated project), so this is really something else.  I'd hate to think how many photos that is...ok, I lied.  And I checked. It's upwards of 1,500.  These are the shots that make it through the stringent quality control at the James Lewis Photo HQ.

So here's some of my recent work since my last blog post.

Thanks for viewing my work, and now get out of your car, leave the petrol station and enjoy the sun because it'll be gone tomorrow!

Golden mist over the river

A very low flying Buzzard

Palmate Newt

A beaver...joke, it's a rabbit!

Non-biting midge (I think)

Finally, a better shot of a linnet (female)

Spring Birds at Bissoe

First, a couple of recent night shots... 

And here are the birds...

Long-tailed tit on willow catkins

Blue Tit

Female Linnet

It's been great weather recently, and if the forecast is correct (hmmm,excuse my skepticism), the fine weather should continue.  If only the wretched haze would clear! It's a nightmare for nighttime shooting. It stops the stars from shining as clearly and coupled with light pollution from nearby towns is a real pain in derriere, but I am trying nonetheless.

When shooting the birds this morning I also spotted a handful of Chiffchaffs and sprinkling of Reed Buntings.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some shots of them in the coming days - I think my best bet is to set up my hide and find the locations the birds frequent the most.

Tomorrow I go for a walk with Nicholas Richards, a local of Bissoe, who will show me where the river that runs through Bissoe starts begins, and I'm hoping I'll gain a greater understanding of why it has such a yellowy/orange hue.

Wrens Wrens Wrens

A foggy dawn led to a mediocre sunrise, with the exception of a couple of short windows of delightful golden sunshine.  I was in a slightly elevated position, considering I was aiming to photograph moorhens and mallards, but I figured if the sun came out it would back-light the fog and probably be worth it.  It's worth mentioning that shooting at eye level, in this case on the ground, can make or break a shot.

So you're photographing a bird on a pond.  You're lying by the waters edge, camera pointed at the Mallard.  Sorry, you don't like ducks? A Great Crested Grebe.  Better?  Right.  When you're at eye level you photographing from a Grebe's point of view.  It gives a much more realistic photo.  You'll also benefit from enhanced bokeh (background lens blur) because there is a much greater distance between the point of focus and the back of the shot.  The reflections of the bird on the water with also be improved.

Anyhow, the moorhens didn't turn up until 8am - I had been there since 6am - and there were no mallards to be seen anywhere (or any Great Crested Grebes for that matter), but a delightful wren (perhaps more than one) kept me company instead.  Here are the shots...

Another Beautiful Sunrise

Last night I headed to Bissoe at dusk to get ready to do some night time star landscape shots. I was there a couple of hours and got some nice shots. The one below is probably my favourite (it looks best viewed bigger). I've never tried doing star reflection in water before but have seen it done a few times. As it was a very still night I thought it was worth a try. I got down to the waters edge - quite tricky in the dark - and managed not to fall in. For all my star shots I use an extreme wide-angle lens (a Tokina 11-16mm, if you're interested). There's something very satisfying at waiting for the long exposures to finish for a first glimpse at the thousands of stars - many which the naked eye can't detect - embedded into your image. Clever cameras!  

Now, during the month of March it is possible to see up to five planets if you look in the right directions on a clear night. Looking westward, the two brightest stars in this photo, seen near the horizon on the right and reflected in the pond, are in fact planets - Venus (the higher, bigger one) and Jupiter (the smaller lower on).  Pretty cool, eh?

A 4:45am start this morning enabled me to make the most of what I hoped would be another beautiful sunrise. I wasn't disappointed. I had made the decision to look for birds on the first pond at the reserve, and set up a camouflage tarpaulin with a hole in for the lens to poke through. I laid on my side on the very frosty ground for an hour snapping away at a male Mallard and realised that I couldn't feel my feet. So I hobbled off, noticing that in that one hour my hide had frozen, and went for a brief run to get my circulation going.  After that, as the sun had fully risen, I started photographing willow catkins, part of the seasonal change that happens at Bissoe. Finally, I had a look under some rocks and found a small toad - about 3-4cm long.  I got a few shots and headed to uni to do some macro work on some matchstick lichen in the lab.

It's been a while....

So it's been a while since I last posted any project work from Bissoe Valley.  So what have I been doing? Less than I should is the answer. Not only has the weather been really poor, but I've had some failed shoots and I kind of lost interest a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, I'm back on track and had an amazing shoot this morning with SUNHINE!!

Here's a few photos from the shoot;

A moorhen leaving the reeds at the side of the pond.  Although it looks like this image was converted to sepia tone in Photoshop, it was in fact a mixture of mist, intense sunlight and shooting towards the sun that gave the shot this effect.

A 9 photo HDR shot of the pond at sunrise

Two male mallards sat on the pond bank