Wildlife Photography across the Water: Keep an open mind and an open eye

Thursday, 22 October 2009

Keep an open mind and an open eye

The last few mornings have seen me sitting under dark starry Tennessee skies waiting for the gates to open at Cades Cove, I used to enjoy star gazing and thought that i would stop looking and try and get a shot, I put the 14-24 on the D3 and fixed it to my tripod and made sue everything was strapped tightly down, i used a remote cord and set the camera to manual exposure and wound the dial down to 'bulb' Then it was a matter of taking a test shot which meant holding the remote down and counting, i started at 20 secs and worked my way through to 45 seconds, I couldn't see anything through the view finder so i set the lens to manual and to infinity,Orion is very visible in the early morning sky so i made sure to get that in, I made sure that there was some tree tops in the image giving some depth to the scene, there have been lots of shooting stars the last few mornings but i never managed to get one in the image, The line on the image is a plane, If nothing else it gave me something to do whilst waiting and gave me a chance to practice with some long exposure times

Dave

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Bio's

David Courtenay, a self taught wildlife and nature photographer, has been capturing images for over 30 years. He has had a passion for wildlife since early childhood and remembers being glued to the television whenever Survival, Wildlife on One and other natural history documentaries were shown. In the 2006 he swapped his established career for the life of a wildlife photographer, such a move demands a measure of uncompromising passion and commitment.

David has travelled extensively throughout Europe as well as spending more than 7 months in India working with local guides and trackers in search of Bengal Tiger, Asian One horned Rhino and Asian Elephant. He has also photographed Wildlife in Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Sumatra, Africa, Canada and America. Working closely with Conservation companies he tries to raise funds to help Wildlife that has been put on the endangered list by poaching and habitation loss

Martin Dyer has had a passion for avian wildlife since childhood, particularly raptors. Photography was also another keen interest and it was with the specific availability and control of the whole process that digital offers that Martin was then able to combine the two in 2003. Based in the UK, Martin is a regular visitor to Scotland, specifically the Isle of Mull to watch the Eagles resident there. Other trips to Europe and around the UK are usually part of Martin’s agenda in a typical year.

However, as a firm believer on making the most of the local patch, Martin has spent a lot of time and hard work creating a wildlife garden which is reaping the rewards with many new species and varieties of wildlife. A keen member of a number of wildlife photographic groups, Martin is keen to expand his portfolio into other areas of wildlife, and has already established a wide portfolio of images of fungi.