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!

Winter has always been my favourite season for photography. Those clear, crisp days that often prevail during cold weather can, and usually do, create some stunning light. As usual throughout much of December I was working on wintering swans and geese, as well as spending time shooting other species of coastal birds for a commission I’ve been working on.

It’s been a fun couple of months. As usual, my main goal was to capture images showing the birds in their environment, using the winter light to create a special atmosphere. Here are a few of my favourites…..

On the day I took the image below, the conditions were the best I have ever encountered whilst photographing whooper swans. As the sun started to sink, the whole sky turned a vivid pink. The last rays of light reflecting off the ice in front of me took on a deep blue hue. This combination created an incredible mix of both cold and warm colour. The light was so intense that all i needed to do to the raw file was a slight adjustment to the levels.

I am delighted to announce that I have won the landscape category in this year’s Nature’s Best Windland Smith Rice Awards. The image that scooped the award shows a flock of flamingos flying over mountain peaks. I shot the image high in the Andes Mountains in Chile after spending one month travelling the length and breadth of Patagonia and beyond, collecting images and searching for locations for photography tours.

We had spent much of the the morning looking for Puma, when we eventually came across a dried lake bed. Some puma’s foot prints led us to a flock of Chilean flamingos that were huddled in a group in an attempt to escape the fierce winds. After spending a fruitless hour or so trying to stalk the birds, part of the flock took to the air and circled us. I captured this image just as they passed over a section of huge granite spires with a glacier in the distance. This was my personal favourite image of the entire trip, showing both the beauty of the birds and the hostile, wild landscape in which they live.

The image will be displayed in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.

I also received a highly honored award for this image of two courting grebes. On the morning I took this the weather was particularly cold. It was early Spring and I arrived at the lake before dawn to find the conditions perfect the shot I had in mind. A veil of mist clung to the water and as the sun rose, its rays filtered through the trees, casting small pools of light onto the water and bathing a pair of courting grebes in golden light. I was shooting from a floating hide which allows me to get close to the birds whilst remaining completely hidden.

Habitat category – Winner

Now that the results have been officially announced I can now reveal that I won the habitat category for the second year running with this image of a mountain hare crouched in its form in a snow drift.

I spent several weeks last winter concentrating on mountain hare and other moorland species. I was keen to make the most of the heavy snow and my aim was to capture images of the hares in their environment, using the adverse weather to show the harsh conditions that these hardy mammals need to endure to survive.

British Seasons – Highly Commended

I was also awarded a highly commended in the British Seasons category for the following set of winter images….

These two images were selected for inclusion in the book (British Wildlife Photography Awards Collection 1), which is on sale now.

I have recently changed internet service providers and as a result my email has been down for a couple of days.

I now have a new email address which is info@benhallphotography.com

If anyone has sent me an email since Friday, please can you re-send it to this new email address as I will not have received it.

Many thanks and my apologies for the inconvenience.

Please note: benhall@wildimages.demon.co.uk is no longer active.

My new exhibition ‘Visions of Nature’ will be shown at the Victoria Hall in Oakham from the 16th to 22nd August to coincide with the Bird Fair at Rutland Water.

I will have roughly 40 30×20 inch framed prints on display, as well as some smaller prints. The exhibition will feature a collection of my most memorable wildlife images from both the UK and Patagonia, with a heavy bias towards birds of course!

All prints are for sale at various sizes, framed and unframed and can be purchased at the exhibition or by contacting me direct.

As most of my relatives live in Rutland – many of them in Oakham itself, I’ll be staying and visiting the exhibition for much of the week, so please drop by.

I’ve just upgraded my camera and bought a 1D Mark 4. I’ll be doing a full review in the coming months but for a taster here are the first images taken with it….