The Birdy Bug Pod
So back at end of August 2022, I started a podcast with my son, something we had been casually talking about for sometime. When I say talking about, what I really mean is that whenever we got together over a nice cup of strong black coffee, we found ourselves chatting passionately about photography, camera gear, wildlife, nature, conservation and the environment. 'We should do a podcast ha ha' is always how those conversations would end and then we'd go our separate ways and get distracted, as always, by day to day life.
0 Comments
Sport...really?I thought I knew what the real definition of sport was until I read an article that recently appeared in one of the major online newspapers.
Apparently, annually, we release 55 million pheasants and red legged partridges and 2.6 million mallards into the countryside so that they can be shot for sport! This volume released into the UK each year now represents more than the total biomass of all UK native birds. No mow MayWe have embraced No Mow May!
For those of you who don't know what that is, it's an initiative encouraged by Plantlife, a British conservation charity working nationally and internationally to save threatened wild flowers, plants and fungi. My favourite walkIn my intro post I talked about some of the places that I am lucky enough to live near and mentioned that all of them deserve more page space to really appreciate why they are special places for me. In this post I am going to take you on a walk that I do from my front door at least once a week. A walk that even if I see the same things, I never tire of. It is my go-to walk when I need a break from the office and one that always lifts my mood, soothes my mind and allows me to switch off completely.
MomentsA special moment
I have mentioned and continue to mention that for me, bird photography is all about moments. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t bothered about the quality of the image and that every time I pressed the shutter button I didn’t want that image to be stunning, for the composition to sit perfectly and for it to be bang on in focus. Of course I do. That is why I continue to try and improve, to learn new techniques and follow and watch photographers that I can learn things from. The theme of this post is the special moments that the journey so far has gifted me, one in particular. My bird worldEvery photograph on my instagram page or in the galleries on the website have been taken locally. Having embarked on this journey of discovery at the start of Covid this to some extent was inevitable but to be honest it’s where I am happiest. In this post I thought I would talk a little bit about what local actually is for me.
A Bird In The LensI've loved photography from the moment I bought my very first SLR film camera, too many years ago to mention here without giving my age away. It was a Fujica STX-1 as I recall, bought with money saved from my first job and it got me hooked. I quickly moved on to a camera that genuinely taught me about the craft and one that still to this day is my favourite camera that I've ever bought. The Nikon FM2. Completely manual, it taught me so much about the relationship between apertures, shutter speeds and film speeds and to begin with the lessons were costly.
|
BLOGAuthorI live on the South Coast of England, close to the South Downs National Park and am totally obsessed with bird photography. Archives
June 2023
Categories |