Nature Photography Workshop Fairburn Ings

Yesterday's nature photography workshop at Fairburn Ings, Yorkshire went really well. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The group was full and I think everyone enjoyed the day's photography. Some of the group's nature photographs can be viewed at my wildlife and landscape photography group on flickr Yorkshire Wildlife and Landscape Photography - thanks to those who uploaded their images. There are some cracking close ups including dragonflies, butterflies and moths. We even had a pair of common blues mating which really made the day!!

Bringing Nature Indoors

For the last few months I've been on the lookout for anything to do with Oak trees. Full tree portraits, leaves, tree bark and associated wildlife all make useful images that build up a portfolio of possibly our most important native tree. One particular old oak at my local farm was showing some good change in leaf colour and I spent an hour or so shooting various leaves. Also quite obvious was the multitude of little flattened spheres that were clustering on almost every single leaf. These are known as oak galls, caused by the eggs laid by insects - in this case most likely the gall wasp. They provide nutrition for the growing larvae, and eventually amass into rather large growths - in some cases bigger than the acorns.

It quickly became apparent that this was a very useful subject to photograph, but with the wind picking up I decided to pick a selection of leaves and take them home to shoot indoors. Once at home I used a technique that I've seldom tried... simply taping the leaf to the window and using soft backlighting to illuminate the branching veins and colours.

As is always the case with close up photography, the most demanding aspect is picking the composition. I tried a number of shots: some I concentrated on veins and colour, whilst for others I focussed my attention on the fascinating oak galls. This is quite a relaxing way to photograph, and taping to the window means quite comfortable shooting too. Using a shortish lens with a 31mm extension tube allowed me to fill the frame. A tripod and remote release was of course essential. Aperture wise I shot at around f11/f16 which maintained depth of field but also kept good optical quality for sharpness. I always feel that backlighting in this way is ideal for plant detail, as it brings out those amazing patterns so much better, due to its translucent nature.

Insects at last!

Over the years I've never really been massively into insects. Not that I've anything against them - it's just that I much prefer photographing my bigger birds and mammals. That said, I've still tried to get some decent shots, and I know that invertebrates will be useful for illustrating articles etc.

The last couple of summers saw a combination of increased effort on my part, along with two of the wettest summers on record. That put pay to my aims to increase my butterfly and dragonfly portfolio.. This year it's been quite different, and finally my efforts have paid off. I've managed a number of butterflies which I desparately wanted, including the frustrating common blue. Dragonflies however, continue to taunt me. Here's a few successful images - a combination of persistence and timing helping to bag some butterfly shots.

Early morning searches for inactive butterflies has proved pretty fruitless. Therefore my technique for butterfly photography has been pretty standard, usually shooting an hour or two after sunrise and trying to photograph towards the light. My usual technique is to rate at ISO 200 and shoot handheld, often around 1/250 at f8, using my elbows as support whenever possible, and firing a series of shots to increase chances of pin-sharpness.No dragonflies this summer as yet, but a nice colourful image of a damselfly which was very obliging. The light was very harsh so I waited for the cloud to pass over the sun and then shot. Reduced light levels in this case meant shooting at ISO 400 and hand holding at shutter speeds down to 1/125 second - tough to keep it pin sharp but it's possible. A few butterfly species have been a little elusive, including orange tip, but I can't complain too much - it's been a fairly successful year.