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Please note: benhall@wildimages.demon.co.uk is no longer active.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

One of the recent projects I have been working on with the BBC is great crested grebes. I took them to one of my local sites the other week where we adorned the waders and used a floating hide to photograph and film these birds. The resulting film will be shown on tonight’s programme between 6:30 and 7pm on BBC 1.

I visited Edinburgh recently for the official launch of 2020VISION. The event started at Our Dynamic Earth and from there went on to the Royal Botanical Gardens for a presentation by Pete Cairns followed by dinner. There was a great turnout despite the flight problems and it was nice opportunity to catch up with the other photographers and learn more about this fantastic project. The event was hosted by IUCN and was attended by many top conservationalists and policy makers.

Throughout the course of the next 20 months, our team of 20 photographers will carry out 20 assignments which will show the link between healthy ecosystems and healthy people. The 2020VISION website is now live at www.2020v.org and I encourage anyone who has not got involved to do so and spread the word!!

I appeared live in the studio last night on BBC 1’s Northwest Tonight where I was interviewed by Gordon Burns and Dianne Oxberry.

The Walk on the Wild Side project is proving a massive success and already the filckr site has been inundated with peoples images – please keep sending them in!

We have loads of great things coming up on the series so keep watching for exciting encounters with the Northwest’s wildlife. If you miss any they can be found on BBC iPlayer.

More coming soon!

The BBC have asked me to work with them on their Walk on the Wild Side project. The aim of this exciting venture is to produce a nature diary that will be televised throughout the year, highlighting the beauty and diversity of wildlife in the North West. I will be featured on a number of these programmes during 2010 where I will be giving tips on various areas of wildlife photography and field craft. I have also been given a high definition video camera and will be contributing to the filming.

The first two programmes will be shown on Tuesday 2nd and Wednesday 3rd of May between 6:30pm and 7pm on BBC 1.

I will also be posting the programmes on this blog so please keep an eye out!

You can read more about this on the BBC website here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/manchester/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8543000/8543164.stm

I’ve been invited to join a team of 20 photographers to be part of a new multimedia initiative called 2020VISION. The project is the most ambitions and far-reaching conservation visual media initiative ever staged in Britain. 2020Vision is designed to change the way we think about the natural world. It will highlight the irrefutable connection between human well-being – physical, economic and spiritual – and intact, fully functioning ecosystems. It’s a vision of a wilder Britain where it is recognised that landscape-scale, healthy ecosystems are actually good for us too.

I am delighted to be part of this amazing project and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in.

Having won 2 categories in the recent BWPA I recieved 2 lots of prizes. I therefore now have a printer and pair of nikon bins for sale (C1 Pro software has already gone).

Before I put them on ebay I thought I would offer them here first.

The printer is the excellent Epson Stylus Photo R2880 and the binoculars are Nikon Travelite EX 8X25 (waterproof). Both brand new and never been out the box of course.

The printer retails at around £600 so I’m looking for £450

The Nikon binoculars are around £110 to buy, for these I’m looking for £75

Please email me if you are interested.

Many thanks.

BOTH ITEMS NOW SOLD – THANKS.

I was interviewed by John McCarthy recently with Ray Mears for the travel programme ‘excess baggage’ on Radio 4. The interview was about my Patagonia trip and will be played on Saturday 24th Oct at 10:00 – 10:30am.