4th June 2009

Last weekend I spent a day with my family by the coast, as always I took my camera with me in the hope of taking some photographs.

This was my favourite image from the day; I often try creative shots when I'm taking photographs, I look at colour and shape, trying to see an element to give a picture an edge, just that little something different. In this case looking through the pink thrift to this guilliemot.

The first characters I came across were this pair of Herring Gulls sitting on the edge of the cliff. I lay down flat on my stomach, decreasing the depth of field, as I was aiming to separate the gulls from the foreground. I did however, want to retain some detail of the cliff in the background, giving a feel for where the photograph was taken.

I stayed with this pair for five minutes or so, both birds were calling, yet in all the images I captured not once were both birds calling at the same time, typical!

As I moved along the cliff I found a section with a razorbill sitting almost at eye level with me, it was sitting amongst some thrift above a two hundred and fifty foot drop. I've photographed seabirds on numerous occasions before, however, I've never taken any images which have had particularly exciting colours.

Here I tried to add some more colour into the image by shooting over the top of a nearby gorse bush. The out of focus flowers added the extra edge to this image which attracted me to it later when I was reviewing.

After a couple of minutes enjoying the warmth in the sunlight this razorbill retreated back to the security of its partial burrow it was using as a nest site.

As the afternoon wore on I worked my way along the cliffline, I saw many birds however the vast majority were too far below me to get anything I felt was going to add to the images I already have. That was why I was attracted to areas where there was a lot of thrift or gorse bushes, something that could add colour to spice up the photographs.

I found a secluded patch just along from a headlead, walking through lots of bushes and long grass, there were no other people nearby, I slowed my approach as the ground started sloping towards the sea. Eventually I crawled towards the edge, looking along was a carpet of sea thrift, a beautiful pink, and poking its head from just around the corner was a bridled guiiliemot.

I slowly slid off my camera bag to rest my lens on, giving me enough height to see over the grass. As I slid the lens forward it stretched its neck out and looked towards me, after a few moments it relaxed again, dozing away in the warm afternoon sun.

I spent a lot of time photographing this bird, its environment held a lot of potential for getting some nice shots, the only problem was it was more interested in sleeping than posing for the camera! However, on one occasion I was lucky enough to see the signs it was about to stand up flap its wings, stretching, this gave me just enough time to recompose.

The only other activity by the guiilemot was occasion-yet very active-preening, I quite liked this image as you get a straight on view of the birds head, able to see the "spectacles" of the bridled guilliemot.

Whilst photographing the guilliemot, a pair of razorbill landed close by to my amazement I witnessed mutual preening followed by brief mating. It was a beautiful show in amongst the sea thrift. I managed to zoom out to 200mm with a second to spare, giving me just enough time to recompose.

After their brief mating, one of the razorbills flew off, leaving the other sitting lonely on the cliff top. This was short lived as after a quick stretch the second bird also took to the wing, leaving the guilliemot sitting alone in the carpet of thrift.

Having spent over an hour photographing this guilliemot I decided to try and get some photographs from other angles, slowly, I backed away. The bird was sitting on a twist in the headland; from the other side I could not see him. I crawled back to my previous position to work out exactly where the guilliemot was perched, this allowed me to approach him from a perpendicular angle to the cliff.

Creeping forward his eyes drew into view, I stopped down to the lowest possible aperture, throwing the foreground completely out of focus, this ensured that it would minimise the impact of any distracting grasses. I did ,however, choose to include a thrift plant on the left side of the frame to add some extra colour to the photograph.

15th May 2009

Unfortunately I've not had much time to take photographs recently. This is due to exams at school, which, naturally have taken most of my attention. When I do have the time however, I'm still doing what I can, even if -like these images- that means taking some in my back garden.