Monday 6 April 2009

Views - Where to find your subjects

I was browsing around the web and blogosphere late last week and read an article that got me thinking.

It was a request for the locations of a number of different species of wildlife for photography.

Now maybe I am being a little sniffy here but it did rather smack of laziness.

My philosophy starts with researching my subject first, finding out its seasons, habitat and then locations. There really is so much resource available on the web and in print that it really is unforgivable not to just carry out some basic legwork yourself.

Sites like The Gloster Birder in local terms for me and Birdguides across the rest of the country will tell you what is about. I subscribe to Birdguides and have email alerts, so when I go away I can either ping it to my netbook or Blackberry.

But there are dozens of great books available, some of which I have linked below. The 'Where to watch Birds in' series covers all counties of the UK and also pretty much the rest of the world.

The BBC 'Natures Calendar' also gives a seasonal glance around the sites of the UK.

Mike Lane has published a great little book called 'Where to Photograph wildlife in Britain' - a number of sites in here I have visited having bought the book.

Amazon is a great source and usually about the best value for most of these.

Then of course, there is our great friend Google, just type in what you are looking for and you will almost certainly find it.

Martin

No comments:

Post a Comment