Apple Blossom, White bluebells & 1st trip to Romania

After the wedding and honeymoon there have been a few quiet days to unpack, ease back into life gently, ok not the last part! Chris was back to work straight away as was I preparing for my first trip to Romania to head up the research but more about that a little later. 

I had a couple of weeks at home to get some photography in and I made the most of the bumper crop of apple blossom this year. I don't think I have ever see it so vibrant and smelly so strongly in my life and there was a lot of it too! Not one to miss an opportunity off I went with camera and macro lens in hand ready to get creative and here are just a few of the images (there will be more uploaded to my website in the coming weeks):

 

I do hope that we get the right weather and a good crop of apple this year there is nothing quite like picking an apple straight from the tree and eating it there and then! But it was not just the apple blossom that caught my eye, we have some stunning white bluebells in the garden as well and these (had we had a spring like 2012 were going to be a additional to my wedding bouquet). Not to worry, I now had a great opportunity to spend several days photographing these beautiful flowers. I have been trying to let my creative juices flow more with my photography as this is what I really enjoy and on this occasion I don't think I took a standard image, so here are just a few of my white bluebells:

 

 And my personal favourite which I have called "wedding bells"

I had a lot of fun getting creative with these flowers and love the results, as always you can see all the technical details for these images on my website where you can also purchase them in various forms. Unfortunately for now although I am busy taking photographs (when it's not raining) I cannot share them directly with you, but I can share the link to my National Geographic Explorers Journal on which I am posting photos from the National Geographic funded research in Transylvania, Romania. We are a team of four conducting the research and you can meet three members of the team along with an introduction to the work we are doing and also the area in my first post. I will be posting fairly regularly and this is the only way to keep up to date and see some of the incredible images being produced, so here is the link:

National Geographic Explorers Journal

I am currently in Romania and will be returning home on 19th June to continue with my work and also working on the identification work for the project. Hopefully I will have more images and news from my work soon. Until then, enjoy the sunshine I hear the UK is getting at the moment! 

Wedding & Honeymoon

Wow, what a couple of months it has been! We had the most incredible and amazing wedding, all the time, effort and work that we put into making it personal was definitely worth it and it was so wonderful to be able to share our special day with so many friends and family. Here are just a couple of photos from our day courtesy of  Thomas and Paul from Willowstone Photography, a huge thank you for capturing our day perfectly. 

 

We had a week at home to sort out work stuff and pack for what would be an incredible 2 week adventure to Borneo for our honeymoon. It was a long flight and by the time arrived in Borneo we were exhausted, we were welcomed to our first stop the Rasa Ria Hotel right on the beach and decided to just chill out and book onto a trip to see the orang-utans for the following day so all that was left was to get some sleep! The next day after breakfast we headed off to see the orang-utans in the forest, we weren't to be disappointed! After chilling out the rest of the day, we watched the most incredible sunset then had a wonderful dinner in a gazebo on the beach! 

Borneo Sunset

Orang-utan in the forest

Atlas Moth

Next stop was the Borneo Rainforest lodge, deep in the heart of the rainforest, we arrived after a short flight and 2 1/2 hour drive but wow, what a place! Paradise in the forest, just perfect and we would spent a few nights here exploring the area with our personal guide and enjoying some wonderful food! There was so much we wanted to see, but top of the hit list was the Wallace's flying frog, we saw not one but two at their nest site, not to mention many many more frogs along the way! We also saw several wild orang-utans, some otters on the river and an Atlas moth! So here are just a couple of photos from our stay at the lodge:

Wallace's flying frog

Frog silhouette

Forest lizard

 After an incredible couple of days it was time to hit the road again and head for the Myne Resort on the banks of the Kinabatangan River where we hoped to see proboscis monkeys, pig-tailed macaques, long-tailed macaques, orang-utans and maybe even the Borneo pygmy elephants and a trip to the Gomantang caves to see the spectacle of millions of bats leaving the caves at dusk and we would spend the next few days exploring the area by boat with the odd trip into the forest. A lot happened in these few days, we saw so much, too much to go into here, but there were definitely some highlights so here goes!!! 

Baby pig tailed macaque

Praying mantis in the forest

Baby long-tailed macaque waking up in the jungle

 And now for the elephants, we found them and spent and amazing hour watching them eating and playing by the banks of the river and even swimming in the river!

baby elephant

A helping push in to the river

The Eye

Elephant greeting

Playing in the river

Alas, it was time to move on again and this time to Sepilok and surrounding area to see the orang-utans, proboscis monkeys and then on to Lankayan Island for a couple of days of paradise to finish our trip around Malaysian Borneo. First stop were the proboscis monkeys, these really are funny creatures with their big noses and crazy soft grunting sounds they make, not only did we encounter these but also some silver leaf monkeys and ...... a baby get ready for some cuteness! 

Female proboscis monkey

Male proboscis monkey

Proboscis monkey in the trees

Captivating eyes

Orang-utan silhouette

Baby silver leaf monkey

A couple of shots from the island paradise of Lankayan, the restaurant and us watching the sunset with a nice glass of wine to end what was an incredible and very special two weeks.

These are of course not all the photos, so if you would like to check out more of the images then head over to my website or Facebook page where you will find all kinds of different images! It really has been the most amazing and special couple of weeks and I am looking forward to many more adventures with the most incredible and loving man in the the world, a huge thank you to everyone who helped to make these few weeks possible. 

So, what next ............. 

Well, I head out to Romania to start the Nat Geo funded research for the Transylvanian Wildlife Project, not before I've had chance to capture some blossom and flowers before I go (that will be in the next post) and for Chris, well it is time to get the athletes ready for the Olympics! Stayed tuned for another update soon. 

Focus On Imaging 2013

Hello, so thing have been quite quiet on the on photographic front due to some exciting developments and news as well as some serious wedding planning, only 9 weeks to go! So lets start off with the Transylvanian Wildlife Project, in my previous post I broke the news of being made research director for the project, a huge honour for me and something I am very excited about but also mentioned something about exciting news, well here it is:

The project has be awarded a National Geographic Explorers Grant for a 12 month project which will commence this spring and one that I will be heading up, I have already started the leg work ready to hit the ground running with a fantastic and very dedicated team where we will be monitoring the numbers of bears, lynx and wolves in the Carpathian Mountains of Covasna County in Romania. Alongside this we will also be running biodiversity studies of the areas in which we will be working. You can keep up to date with our progress on the following link and typing in "Transylvanian Wildlife Project" into the search bar where it says Find Project.

National Geographic Explorers

Away from Romania, I am delighted to announce that I will be attending Focus on Imaging at the NEC this year as a Local Hero of the Manfrotto School of Xcellance. Not only will I be giving two seminars titled "Nature's Beauty Through My Lens" but I will also be leading thirty minutes long one-to-one workshop sessions, both of which are free but space is limited so you will need to book. Full details of timings and the link to book are below. 

Seminar - Nature's Beauty Through My Lens

Sunday 3rd March 1pm - 1.45pm

Tuesday 5th March 11am - 11.45am

In this special seminar for Focus On Imaging I will talk about some of my most memorable images of both wildlife and landscapes and the stories behind capturing them. Looking at different techniques, colour, monochrome and more artistic takes on familiar species I will discuss the importance of knowing your equipment to be able to achieve the results you're looking for in camera. 

One-to-one Workshop Sessions

Sunday 3rd March 2:30pm - 3:00pm

Monday 4th March 2:30pm - 3:00pm

Tuesday 5th March 2:30pm - 3:00pm

Wednesday 6th March 12:30pm - 1:00pm

Here's the link for further details on the seminars and one-to-ones and links to book your place

Manfrotto School of Xcellance at Focus on Imaging

Outside of these times you will be able to find me on the Kata stand demonstrating and talking about their products so please come and say hello and ask any questions that you may have. I look forward to seeing you there.

Focus On Imaging promises to be a lot of fun and I'm really looking forward to it, but in the mean time I'm hoping to get out and about this weekend and photograph some snowdrops in between working my way through mammoth amounts of wedding preparations and drinking lots of tea! Fingers crossed I will have some results to post next week, but for now have a great weekend what ever you are up to, the weather's looking promising! 

Festive Greetings

Hello everyone, apologies for the length of time between posts things have been very busy. I have now finished work as a cave guide in preparation for new adventures and will miss everyone there, although I have been made to promise I will go back and visit them once in a while with updates! Despite all this I have managed to get out with the camera the morning after freezing fog and am very excited about a new position which I will explain more about later in the post. 

Ok, so lets start off with the freezing fog. It's been a long time since I've experienced freezing fog and definitely couldn't pass up the chance to photograph the ice that was left behind the morning after, so here are just a couple of images I took just around the corner from the house (if you want to see more pop over to my Facebook or Flickr pages). I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it, the ice crystals were phenomenal and only on one side of the branches, it was still bitterly cold and I really wanted to get this across in the images, I hope you like them and I would recommend getting out there if you have a chance next time there is some freezing fog, I know I will be! 

 

Away from the freezing fog, I have not had much time to get out and about, but have managed to visit the woods around the corner a couple of times to try out different techniques, my star-burst filter and polish up some techniques I have not used in a while, many for taking water shots. Although I took a fair few, these two are definitely my favourites but I will continue to work on this side of my photography in preparation for next year. 

Away from photography, many of you may or may not know that I am a scientist by training and have always wanted to use this alongside my photography. Well, the time has come, I am very proud and honoured to have been offered the position of Research Director for the Transylvanian Wildlife Project, this is a project I have contributed to with articles and photos and now really cannot wait to get stuck in to the many exciting prospects lined up for 2013 and working with such an enthusiastic, passionate and fun team. We are now very much in the planning for something very exciting but are keeping it under wraps for now, but do check out the project website in the mean time. 

The other project I'm working on is coming along nicely and we have received encouraging news in recent weeks. I have been very kindly given a copy of the book Tripwire for a Tiger which I cannot wait to get stuck into, but from all accounts this incredible book has been very well received and I can definitely recommend it to everyone, you can buy copies of the book from here: Tripwire for a Tiger 

Away from work all together, it is now just four months until the wedding and as you can probably imagine things are in full swing and we have lots to do over the coming weeks so I will be concentrating on this and spending some much needed time chilling out with the family over the festive period, recharging the batteries ready for what promises to be a very exciting and packed 2013. This will be my final post until late January as I will be away in Germany and Austria for a couple of weeks so I would like to wish you all a wonderful Festive period whatever you are doing, be safe and have fun, and don;t forget to give the camera a little Christmas love too! 

Successful two weeks

Well, I am now back in a very rainy and not so warm UK and catching up on processing images and emails. The last two weeks have been an incredible experience, a lot of fun and meeting the rest of the TWP team was great, already looking forward to heading out again in September. After a full on morning and late afternoon/evening of walking and photography, we were treated not only to a wonderful sunrise through the trees in the forest but also to the eclipse on Wednesday night which is the first image for this instalment.

I am gradually uploading images to my website with details of the equipment used and going through the invertebrate images working on identification, if you can provide any help with the identification process please let me know! I have now finalised the details for the 2012 Natural Europe Calendar which will cost just £12 including first class postage within the UK, images will comprise of mammals, birds, plants, insects and landscapes and there will be space for writing. I am just going through choosing the images and as they are selected they will appear on my website here along with further details: 2012 Calendar I am also having a sale of existing stock over the weekend of July 30th and 31st (Saturday and Sunday) with up to 50% of some items, for full details click here: Buy Direct from the Photographer. One last bit of news, my Corryvreckan whirlpool image is being published in a new book coming out in October about the Earth. This last image is one of my favourites from the last two weeks of the sun coming through the trees, taken in black and white.

Well, that is about it for now, back to the washing and selecting images for the calendar and hoping that the sun will come out sometime in the next few days!

An update from in the field in Romania

I arrived safely in Romania and it has been a busy few days, meeting the team and organising trips to find and start documenting the wildlife. We have been concentrating on local areas around Odjula and have had some great success in only a few days and have begun the task of photographing and identifying plants, insects and amphibians. We have undertaken both short and long walks through forests and meadows in search of species to document and have so far found at least four different species of grasshopper, a cricket, three species of orchid, a salamander and a yellow bellied toad, not to mention the Carpathian deer and a family of wild boar. The area is incredible with breathtaking forests and vast amounts of life. So for the first photo, this was taken in a clearing in the forest with low cloud creating a wonderfully atmospheric image.

Hiking through the forest is a wonderful experirence that words cannot explain but unfortunately in many areas of the forest illegal trapping still occurs using both snares and foothold traps, both of which cause suffering to the caught animal as they are not killed when they are trapped and the traps may not be checked for days. During one of our trips through the forest we came across both types of traps along a path with the snare first followed by the foothold trap, luckily our team members saw the traps, disabled and removed them.

So a little more about the wildlife and this area has a huge diversity of species from plants to insects to mammals. The Carpathians are home to a specific deer called the Carpathian Deer which is found nowhere else. It is much larger than the familar red deer and has a long thin face with a dark stripe running along the ridge of the neck. The forests are also home to fire salamanders and yellow bellied toad which mate, lay their eggs and look after their young in pools of water. We have seen both of these species and if you click on the link below you can watch a video of the fire salamander. Fire Salamander

As for the bugs, well there are a lot of them around and some very interesting ones at that, the first photo is of a yet unidentified insect that we found next to the landrover.

The second photo is of one of the many species of grasshopper that we have seen, but this one was a little camera shy and kept hiding behind the grass stem!

We are making good progress with documenting the flora and fauna and as always you can seen a more extensive collection of images and videos on both my Flickr page and new facebook page. Right back to cataloguing images!

Hello again, hope everyone has been out and about enjoying the sun if you've had some! This will be my last update for a while as I head out to Romania on Sunday June 5th for two weeks to work on the Transylvanian Wildlife Project, it goes without saying that I am very excited and looking forward to meeting the rest of the team and getting stuck into photographing and studying the ecosystem out there. I will try to post a quick update from the field but no promises! I will however provide a detailed account when I get home hopefull with some wonderful images.

But for now back to what's been happening here in Somerset. I have had another day out on the levels with the macro lens and a great deal of success. Not only was it wonderful to be down there in the peace and quiet with all the wildlife around in the sunshine, but to see so many damselflies and dragonflies was fanatstic. So I have a couple of images from the day out on Wednesday, the first is of a damselfly. This image is a little more artistis and took some skill in capturing due to the strong winds blowing the grass in and out of focus, but I have gone for a shallow depth of field to give the impression of this little critter coming out of the green towards you, hope you like him!

The second image is off something that is rarely seen let alone photographed, look away now if you are scared of spiders! This image shows two mating soldier beetles with a crab spider biting the female beetle. By moving myself I managed to get the spider face on so you can see its face and all its eyes, and if you look carefully you can see the black heart marking on the back of the soldier beetles.

I've not only been busy with the bugs, I have also been photographing, as well as playing in, the Bath touch rugby summer league. I actually did a lot of sports photography when I was at school so it is really nice to have the opportunity to do it again now, even if it is just for fun! I've included the link to the summer league album, I will be updating it on a regular basis with images form the league and cup competitions, hope you enjoy browsing through them: Touch Rugby.

Well, time for me to go and get things organised and ready for the trip to Romania. Have a great bank holiday weekend and I will be back online soon. In the meantime you can keep up to date with images through my flickr account Flickr or why not pop over to my brand spanking new Facebook page: Facebook.