Above and Below Exhibition

It is the last day of our "Above and Below" exhibition at the Richard Burton Gallery, Buckton, East Yorkshire tomorrow from 10.00am to 4.00pm. If you are still looking for that perfect Christmas gift then pop in and say hello. We will have framed prints, mounted prints, canvases, postcard packs and photography workshops available to purchase - see you there.

Waxwing Invasion

Some years we hardly have any Waxwings visiting our shores but occasionally we have a bumper year and 2012 seems like it is going that way. There was an invasion on the Shetland Isles and then Waxwings started to invade the east coast before heading inland where they have been seen in York, Leeds and Sheffield in big numbers.

Here on the Yorkshire Coast we have had our fair share of these beautiful birds arriving from the high north from countries such as Norway, Sweden and Iceland. They come to our shores to feed up through the winter months due to the fact that there must be a harsh winter in their homelands to cause them to migrate to our shores in search of that perfect berry.

Over the last few weeks I have been photographing these stunning birds around my home town of Scarborough and below are a few images to depict the shear beauty and elegance of this winter visitor - the Waxwing.

Urban Fox Project

The Red Fox Vulpes vulpes is one British mammal that over the years has escaped my camera, so when I was given the recent opportunity to photograph a fox family, well, how could I refuse? On one of my photography workshops client Maggie Bruce mentioned that a fox family visited her garden in Hull on a daily basis. I asked Maggie if it would be possible to photograph them and received an open invititation to visit her and the foxes.

It didn't take long on my first visit (48 hours) for me to access the garden, find the best position to errect my hide, work out the best times to visit regarding the position of the sun and lighting and to find the places the foxes used to enter the garden.

Once all these were done, several more trips were necessary to work out the times of  day the foxes were most likely to visit. Maggie told me that they were most active on an evening, although she did see them occasionally during the daytime and early morning.

My first visits were evening ones. The foxes did show but not until around 9 p.m. when light levels were starting to drop. I decided to make an early morning visit, but despite being in the hide for 5 a.m. there was only one brief visit by the vixen. It was back to the drawing board; the only option was to have a crack at an all day/evening session.

On this nine-hour fox watch, it took five hours for the first young fox to appear, showing fairly well before disappearing into the undergrowth. As there was considerable noise pollution coming from the gardens either side, I thought it was possibly time to give up, but I stuck with it and two hours later it was fox heaven with up to four foxes at once!

It was really difficult to capture a number of foxes together. Two of the young foxes were very inquisitive and another youngster and the vixen proved very timid. I managed to get some beautiful shots and I would like to thank Maggie Bruce for looking after me with food and drink and giving me access to her stunning garden and amazing foxes!

Workshop Delights

I have now started 'Bird Photography Taster Workshops' with my new company Yorkshire Coast Nature and in partnership with the RSPB at Bempton Cliffs. The opportunities to capture the incredible seabird spectacle are endless. Please find a few images below taken over the last few days on my workshops.

If you would like to book a place on one of the workshops please click here
http://yorkshirecoastnature.co.uk/workshops/4/rspb-bird-photography-taster-workshops