Without doubt, my favourite conditions for landscape photography are when cloud inversions occur. This wether phenomenon usually happens following a cold but clear night, when the air becomes warmer with altitude – a direct reversal of normal temperature conditions. During a spell of cold weather the other week, I hedged my bets and climbed to the summit of Mam Tor for first light, and what a morning it was! It is an amazing feeling to be completely above the clouds and the photographic opportunities it provides are endless.

As the clouds traversed the sky the landscape was constantly changing. Peaks and hills appeared one minute and disappeared the next, allowing for  variety of images to be taken just seconds apart.

I’ve been incredibly busy recently so must apologise for the lack of posts. I’ve had lots of commissioned work on, and since the recent house move I’m just getting back into the swing of things with plenty of planned shoots coming up. I’ve also been working feverishly updating my collection of Peak District landscapes – but more of that later!

Some of my recent commissions have been for 2020vision. I did an extra day in the National Forest last week, and although the autumn colours weren’t quite at their best, I still came back with some pleasing images. For the first hour of light I concentrated on landcapes and then moved to a lovely area of woodland known as ‘Outwoods’ to capture shots of people. Here is a taster…

Please note, we have just moved house to Poynton so the office number has changed to 01625 877 313.

I am now offering gift vouchers for sale. Each voucher will come in one of our greeting cards and would make an ideal Birthday or Christmas gift! Vouchers can be used against any print or workshop and the amounts come in £15.00, £25.00, £50.00, £75.00, and £100.00

Please either email – info@benhallphotography.com – or phone the office if you are interested in purchasing a voucher.

I’m delighted to announce that I have 3 highly commended images in this year’s British Wildlife Photography Awards, all in the habitat category. Here are the winning shots…

For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a link to a gallery of images on The Telegraph website:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/8477583/Beautiful-photographs-of-British-landscapes-and-wildlife-by-Ben-Hall.html

Apologies for the lack of posts recently but I’ve been busy working on various projects, mostly for 2020vision. I spent several days in Northern Ireland for them in June photographing peat bog habitat and several differet macro subjects including the scarce Irish damselfly. It was tiring work, starting shooting at 4:30am to catch the dawn light and finishing at sunset at 10pm! But, those brief moments when the light was it its best made it all worthwhile.

Here are a selection of images from the trip….

It’s always nice to have images published in newspapers, I have an image in the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror today.

I’ve just returned from a 2 week trip to South Africa, I was there to shoot wildlife and landscape images for a game farm in the Karoo on the Western Cape. The Great Karoo is mainly a dry, barren and unforgiving landscape but is also the largest ecosystem in South Africa and holds an amazing diversity of life. My job was to take images on a game reserve which unlike much of the Karoo was an amazing mix of mountains, rocky canyons, forests and plains.

moon rising over cliffs

Blue wildebeest running

The photography was difficult. As is to be expected the game was very skittish so getting close enough was a constant challenge. I was given a guide who took me out in a 4wd each day which made life easier as the animals were more used to the vehicle and tolerated a closer approach. We also made some pretty long walks as I also did plenty of stalking on foot in order to get the right angle.

Our accommodation was a luxury lodge on the edge of a huge canyon. Sitting out on the veranda when the light was too harsh to shoot we watched impala, springbok, ostriches, grazing wildebeest and a variety of birds. Regular visitors were a pair on sunbirds, various types of bulbuls, beeeaters and a pintailed widow bird even showed up on one occasion.

Lodge

I took this one evening when the stars were particularly bright. You can see the trail of a bat on the right hand side of the frame. I used a long exposure and lit the building with a small torch. We had several clear nights when the stars were the best I have ever seen and you can clearly make out the milky way directly above the lodge.

Lodge at night

The weather was incredibly hot. being their summer it was 40 degrees + every day so was a bit of a shock to the system but I soon got used to it. What was more difficult to get used to was the altitude, we climbed to several thousand meters on some occasions in order to get above the cloud and photograph eland. Lugging a 500mm lens this distance and height was exhausting but the views were well worth it!

I took this shot of my guide, Lodrick, in the middle of the day so it was no good in terms of the light but I couldn’t resist taking it just to show the sheer scale of the place.

I was keen to get some action shots of the animals so on overcast days I would dial in a slow shutter speed to reveal the motion.

Klipspringer leaping

red hartebeest running with young

Lightning storm

Springbok with approaching storm

Red hartebeest

Hadedas ibis, pair flying towards rain storm at dusk

Impala with young

Milkweed grasshopper

Larklike bunting singing in rain shower

Hadeda ibis

Black wildebeest backlit

Sunbird perched on cactus

Tortoise

Red-eyed bulbul

This is one of my favourite images from the trip. All too often clouds would appear at the end of the day and prevent me from capturing silhouettes but on this occasion, the final day of the trip, it all came together and I managed to get a shot of this kudu bull standing on the edge of the cliff with the storm clouds rolling in overhead. I purposely zoomed out to 330mm so as to include the distant cliff on the left hand side of the frame to add some depth.

Kudu bull silhouetted at dusk

I still have some 1000 images to edit and process and will add a new gallery with images from the trip in due course!

I have received a lot of emails recently from people who have tried to comment on my blog posts but have been unable to. Unfortunately I had to disable the comments option some time ago as I was inundated with spam, so my apologies if you have tried to comment!