Animals

These shots were achieved without a macro lens. I just used my camera's kit lens, an 18-55 mm zoom. A lot of difficulty comes with photographing any animal but especially when it comes to these butterflies. They move very unpredictably, having brief moments of rest where you try to get the perfect shot before they move off againn.

Make no mistake, I am no jungle explorer going out to find these in their natural habitats. These where shot at a butterfly farm in the UK. It was a great opportunity to practice a very quick workflow, the butterflies definitely did not care whether I had got my settings right and got the shot before they moved.

I later touched up these photos in adobe lightroom, slightly bringing out the natural hues to create the vibrant stunning look these immages posses.

These shots were  again achieved with just used my camera's kit lens, an 18-55 mm zoom. These birds provided a different challenge than the butterflies. They were at distance and moved incredibly fast. A fast shutterspeed and quick, steady movements with the camera proved helpful. You can see in some of the images that the background experienced motion blur whilst the bird didnt. This is because I managed to track the birds in my viewfinder as I took the shot.

Again as you can likely tell from the presence of a handler in these photos, I did not find these birds in the wild. I had this amazing photography opportunity at Warwick castle bird show. I am very proud of these shots! A lot turned out well. A lot of shots I got that day did not look good but I was capturing as much as possible to ensure I would have a selction of good looking shots and I think I defintely delivered

I later touched up these photos in adobe lightroom, grading, adjsusting exposure and colour. The first slide of the barn owl is one of the shots I'm most proud of. Even so in the original photo, a spectator's head was visible at the bottom. I managed to edit this out to create more focus on the spectacular bird, giving it the space in the frame it deserves.

When I'm all out of projects,  people, subjects and places to photograph, I like to do a shoot with the one model who is always availible: my cat. Meet frankie. He is a great subject to practice my ability. I enjoy giving him beautifully shallow portrait shots with prime telephoto lenses. And on the flipside I enjoy using a very wide lens to get up and close to him.

Frankie has taught me a lot about photographing models in daylight, working in response to a model to capture uncontrollable moments and just having fun with my work.

He is my only client who has not expressed satisfaction with my work!

Unlike the butterflies previously mentioned, these bees were photographed in their natural habitats. Photographing these insects, you can create alien worlds and abstract compositions. 

These photos were taken with both my kit zoom and a 50 mm. They're proof that you can do macro photography without a macro lens.