A Time for Other Photography
I have neglected this blog for a while – as you can see from how long ago the previous post was! So what have I been up to? I have not had the opportunity to spend much time at the hide with my camera, even though I go there almost every day! I have been managing the hide around working on the farm, which is good because I am on site, so I can go down to the hide to top up feeders and check on things. So with working on the farm and having customers in the hide, I have not had many opportunities to spend time there with my camera.
When I started the hide, I certainly underestimated how labour intensive it would be! It is absolutely worth it though. Even without my camera, just spending an hour in the hide eating my lunch and soaking it all in is reward enough for the hard work. The hide is a place that completely relaxes me, it helps me disconnect from the world and I know that it has had a massive positive impact on my mental health.
I often go to the hide in the evenings to do a bit of work during this hot weather. It’s much better being there to work when it’s cooler in the evening. Some nights I've not got hime until 10pm. I love being there in the evening. The place has a different feel to it as night draws in, it’s quieter and somehow even more relaxing. There has also been another reason for going there in evening, and hopefully it will make for an interesting blog post over the coming couple of months. I have a project that requires night sessions in the hide…
I have also sacrificed hide time to focus on other wildlife. I love macro photography, and at this time of year I always go hunting for wasp spiders. The wasp spider is our second largest spider after the raft spider and was first recorded in Rye Harbour in 1922. I am totally fascinated by this gorgeous spider and never grow tired of photographing them. Did I just describe a spider as gorgeous? You are damn right I did! Just look at those markings, what a stunning creature!
Flash photography is something that I have wanted to get my head around for some time, and I have recently purchased a pair of Godox V860III flashes. I can only use one on my camera, but it will become clear why I purchased two in my next blog post. A flash gives you the ability to shoot at slower shutter speeds and still get lovely sharp images, which is perfect for focus stacking. However, a flash is very bright, so to counteract the harsh brightness I use a Cygnustech diffuser with my flash. The ladybird below is a 40 image focus bracket, the spiders and other insects are 15 image focus stacks using the OM System OM-1’s in-camera stacking. All are hand held, stacked using Helicon Focus and edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.
I have also had some sessions on the river after dippers. I have only photographed juveniles but will be having more sessions to hopefully get the adults. Sitting in a river watching wildlife is possibly one of the most relaxing things to do. I thoroughly recommend it, especially on a hot day!
Even though I have had only a couple of sessions at the hide over the past two months, they have been good sessions. I have been fortunate and blessed with a visit from the female sparrowhawk who has raised two, possibly three chicks this year. For the past couple of weeks, they have all been hanging around the woods and could be heard calling throughout the day. Now they are starting to disperse and go their separate ways, with less frequent calls coming from the woods.
What a magnificent animal. Simply stunning! 😍
Another special visit was from a species that I have been hoping would come to the hide for a long time now: the green woodpecker. I have photographed them on the ground from the hide, but it was always more of record shot, nothing that looked ‘professional’ because I was looking down at the bird, not shooting at its level. Rule number one of wildlife photography: always be at eye level with your subject. But recently I was in the hide and to my complete amazement, a juvenile green woodpecker landed on one of the perches! It just goes to show that where wildlife is concerned, you never quite know how things will play out.
