Saturday 27 March 2010

The lean spell continues

I think every photographer most go through a period where they just don’t have much success or get any lucky breaks, well, I’ve been going through one since September last year.  I’ve managed to take little in the way of a picture that I would regard as a ‘wall hanger’, of course the weather hasn’t helped, but I just don’t seem to be in the right place at the right time.

So far this year, one of my favourites subjects to photograph, Kingfishers, are nowhere to be seen and so far have not seemed returned from their winter hunting grounds so I can only think the harsh winter has taken their toll on them.  Other animals I like to photograph, Foxes and Deer, I have only managed glimpses of.  This weekend, I took an extra day off on Friday so that I could re-visit Cresswell in the hope to photograph Barn Owls.  The weather forecast was ok, cloudy at first but improving greatly as the day went on – it pored with rain when I got there and with winds of around 40 km per hour, it wasn’t exactly ideal weather for man nor beast and so unsurprisingly, didn’t see any owls…actually, I didn’t see much of anything.  About the only excitement of the whole morning was a Swan taking off and a Heron being chased by a gull.

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After a while, I decided to wrap up and brave the elements and make the most of the scenic Northumberland coastline, so armed with my Canon 1d Mk IIn and 17-40mm lens, both being weather sealed, I ventured out.  Making the most of the sand dunes contours to reduce the worst of the wind I was able to take a few  landscapes though struggled to keep the camera still with the strong wind.

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Looking along the sand dunes that make ideal hunting ground for owls and kestrels.

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Mini ‘sand storm’

Venturing out on Saturday, proved equally fruitless, hoping to see Little Owls and Short Eared Owls at opposite ends of Tyneside, but, although it was mostly sunny, it was again extremely windy and never even took my camera out of its bag.

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