Author Archives: grmnl

I am pleased to announce that I was awarded the Finalist award in this years Wildlife Photographer of the year. It was a real surprise and I was over the moon when I got the email to say that I was through to the awards. I am extremely grateful to say that this is the second year that I have had an award in the competition and  it was a real pleasure to catch up with everyone that I had met at the previous award ceremony. The competition hosted a wealth of incredibly evocative images which told a variety of stories. Next I had a week full of exiting experiences including a media preview and a young wildlife photography academy for which I am extremely thankful to Rosie and the rest of the Wildlife Photographer of the year team for putting on. In the years that I have been at the awards I have to

Had some great news today after finding out I’d won the 12-18 category in the British Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition. Can’t say how thrilled and I am at getting the award especially given all the other fantastic entries. I thought it might be nice to provide a little bit of background to my image. I live in a typical suburban road but which also borders on lots of open spaces and farm land so with the best of both worlds so to speak we’ve always been lucky enough to have foxes on our doorstep. Typically they would frequent neighbours gardens who after playful games would curl up in a favourite corner for a quiet snooze, most of which I would watch from bedroom window. The year before last a vixen and a one eyed dog fox which I presumed to be her mate regularly began to venture into

Over the past couple of months I have had the great pleasure of being able to test out Swarovski’s CL Companion 8×30 binoculars. They have been essential in my photography as I have been able to watch wildlife from a distance and predict their behaviour so that I could get a better picture and gain a better understanding of my subject. The first thing you notice about the binoculars is their neat compact size, this is especially important to the wildlife photographer who may be walking over long distances as weight can be such a limiting factor with long lenses and big clunky tripods. And because of their compact design, it means that you can have them on you pretty much all the time and not miss any birds which you may encounter. The small size of the binoculars also helps the binoculars to fit comfortably in your hands without

I have recently been using my Large Dome hide , from my sponsor Wildlife Watching Supplies, to photograph the abundant bird life in my garden.  I thought so highly of it and the result of success I had with the birds was brilliant, I thought I would share a few points as to why you should defiantly invest the money into getting one. The Dome Hide is one of many of Wildlife Watching Supplies products and I can now say why it it such a successful product. To start off with I will talk about the initial setup, I had the visions in my head of having to take forever to put up[ the hide but I couldn’t have been more wrong. This is one of the simplest hides to setup and no extra help was needed at all further more the hide went up in a matter of minutes.

Recently I joined 7 other young wildlife photographers on a 3 day trip to the Farne Isles,Northumberland . The first leg of our journey involved a four and a half hour train journey from Kings Cross station to Newcastle and then on to another train to reach our accommodation. When we arrived Max opened his case to reveal a huge bag of cider, from that point on we just knew it would be an exiting trip. In the evening we all decided to walk down to the beach to photograph the glorious sunset and to get our bearings of the area. The sunset was as glorious as you could get, the light was beautiful and allowed for some really great photo opportunities. The next morning we got picked up by the taxi and we dropped of in the harbour where we boarded Billy Shiel’s boat trip and headed towards the

A holiday break in North Devon proved much more than just an escape from reality, it gave me the chance to dip into the fine art of coastal photography. My Dad will always tell you that I do very much enjoy my lie-ins, I really do have too many, so I have to admit that I wasted the mornings. In a way I regret it now but the evenings proved to fill me with ideas of slow exposure landscape photography. Now if anyone of you have ever met me I would always tell you that I am not much of a landscape photographer and I would always point you in the direction of my Dad, who is an inspirational photographer(to me anyway), and say that’s the man to speak to. But I felt it was time for a change and having a beach about 20 minutes walk from the cottage

Well when I received the bag, I was pleasantly surprised. To be honest I was expecting a very bulky bag with lots of unnecessary straps and pockets but no, Lowepro have come up with a bag fit for any serious pro photographer(working with a large lens and camera body). The Lowepro Lens trekker is fairly light weight for its size and has plenty of design features to keep your lens safe and sound. For starters the tough outer shell of the bag is made up of tough protective material which can absorb the knocks and bumps from the travelling photographer. The front opening to the bag is more heavily padded but the sides also offer more than adequate protection, and also feature a monopod mounting strap and loop, ideal for the sport or wildlife photographer that needs that extra lens support. Keeping with the outer aspects of the bag, the

On Sunday I got the chance to help out at a local bird ringing session, my main job was to take photographs of the birds (especially close up head shots). It was a totally new experience for me because I am used to using the weighty long lens to photograph birds but this time, it was the complete opposite end of the scale. The lens in question was a macro lens, which would enable me to take really detailed close ups to show the beautiful plumage off, and to show the birds off it a different light. For me I want to create a story about the bird ringing and the process from start to finish,from catching the birds to the release. I shall be attending the ringing sessions fairly often now so I will release a full set of images later but for now this is what I achieved

Sorry for the lack of postings, I have been really busy( working with  World Wetlands Trust, getting more sponsors,talks at the Natural History Museum and more importantly my GCSE’s, which are in about five weeks time).  But a week ago I got the chance to visit Richmond Park for a days photography, and I have to to say it was great getting out after the dreadful weather that had practically flooded everywhere apart from where I live.  The weather had since improved vastly with the sun breaking through the clouds which meant a brief showering of sunshine bringing the British public out in good spirits. Now back to Richmond, I didn’t have a specific target but I found myself drawn to the Pen Ponds which hosted a variety of ducks and the fighting coots were simply too good  to resist. My approach was to lay down in between the reeds on

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