Big Cats Photography Day - Page 1

I love cats, all kinds of cats from your average household moggie to the beautiful big cats that live in the wild. Over the weekend I got to combine my love of cats with my love of photography by attending a Big Cat Photography day organised by the Talk Photography forum.

The day was taking place at the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Kent. A charity which is UK based who are working hard to ensure that the big cat species of the world are protected from extinction. They are an active partner in the European Endangered Species Breeding Programmes (EEP), as well as setting up education programmes for the people that share the habitats of these wonderful cats. The WHF is also raising awareness and funding for big cat projects around the world.

Having checked that I had a good supply of fully charged batteries and empty memory cards on the Friday evening I got all my camera equipment prepared for an early start on Saturday morning. Up at 6am to get ready before leaving home to travel down to Kent I was so excited about what the day would hold, I’d read such great reports from people who had previously attended the WHF I couldn’t wait to get there and experience it for myself.

After a nice easy drive I arrived at my destination in plenty of time and grabbed myself a drink from the refreshments tent. I met up with a few other members of the Talk Photography forum and introduced myself to a few of them who had already arrived, I was also asked to sign an indemnity form and read through the safety guidelines – basically I was signing away my life, if I got eaten it was all my fault! Once everyone was in attendance we had a short safety briefing – do not put fingers through the bars (really?) do not poke the animals etc seemed like common sense to me but we all know that not everyone has that in abundance!

We would be shown around the centre animal by animal and be given time to take plenty of photographs as we were there. The warden would give us information about each one and would answer any questions we had. First off we saw the Pallas Cats – these had a small head and a long tail. They look not very similar to a household cat in the face but have a lot of hair which comes out from their neck towards their face.

They have two Pallas Cats at the WHF Tula is female and Wei Shand who is male. The species is near threatened, it is unknown how many of these cats remain in the world but a lot of this species are killed by humans each year due to poison put down on farms as a side effect of rodent control. These little cats looked very cute but can actually be quite vicious; they have the most beautiful faces though.

We then travelled to see the tigers. In total there are ten tigers currently residing at the WHF we visited Indy, Puna, Asu and Bawa who all share a very large enclosure. Indy is a hybrid tiger which means a cross breed (Bengal with Amur) and came to the WHF from Paradise Wildlife Park where she was hand reared in her early years.

Puna is a Sumatran tiger, the smallest of the species and came to the WHF from Heidelberg Zoo where she had been hand reared. When she arrived at the centre she had forgotten how to be a proper tiger and so she was housed with Indy in the hope she would pick up the animal instincts she would naturally possess in the wild. Puna is playing a vital role in keeping the gene pool of Sumatran Tigers alive in captivity as an active member of the breeding programme along with Nias who she is paired with – they successfully produced two cubs in 2008.

Asu and Bawa are the two cubs born at WHF in July 2008. At a year old they are almost the same size as their mother but still display the playfulness of cubs. It is hoped that once they reach 18 months Asu will be moved on to another facility to become part of their breeding programme. Unfortunately Sumatran tigers are critically endangered and may disappear within the next 10 years this is why breeding centres like this play such a vital role in the conservation of these magnificent cats.

The picture below shows just how tall the tigers are when they stand on their back legs – these are actually the smallest types of tiger but they still stand at a good height when they stand up like this.

Due to the sheer amount of breeds of big cats housed at the WHF I’m going to break my blog down into separate parts as I want to make sure I do each animal justice so my last section for today will be about the next species on our visit – the Amur Leopards.

We saw four of the Amur Leopards on our visit – Artur and Xizi the breeding male and female and their two male cubs Argun and Anuy who were born at the WHF in October 2008. Artur has to be kept in a separate enclosure to his mate and offspring as if he was to be placed in the same pen his natural instinct would cause him to try and kill the two cubs.

The Amur Leopards are the world’s most endangered species of cat and this breeding pair are at the fore front of the conservation work at the WHF. It is estimated only 35 Amur Leopards remain in the wild and it is envisaged that some of the off spring born in captivity under the EEP programme will be released into the wild in the future to try and stop them from becoming extinct.

These cats certainly were the liveliest of the day. We had been warned that they could stretch their full front leg through the cage, and they were very likely to do it, we were to be on guard at all times and if the keeper shouted “get back” we had to move faster than lightning! Xizi especially would run straight towards us with a loud growl and a snarl which made for some great pictures.

It was very difficult getting pictures of them as they just didn’t stand still plus trying to hold a camera, check the focus and get a shot with one eye whilst keeping the other eye open for a leopard charging towards you with it’s rather large teeth heading straight for you is a mean feat I can tell you.

One of the cubs was so absolutely adorable as he made a little squeaking noise rather than a growl at times it was hard to believe that these animals are so deadly and dangerous. The keeper was able to feed Argun and Anuy through the cage and they even gave his hand a little lick though he said in a few months there will be absolutely no chance of him being able to do that…..funnily enough he didn’t try and feed Xizi by hand.

Even though Argun and Anuy are only 10 months old they are a good size and not much smaller than Xizi. This picture shows just how big their paws and the length of their claws – I certainly wouldn’t want to mess with any of these guys!

The Amur Leopards were stunning animals, the power in their bodies was spectacular and they are amazingly beautiful, almost mesmerizing. I certainly hope that the work being done by the WHF and the other centres in the European Endangered Species Breeding Programme can go some way to help protect them from extinction as it would be such a loss to the animal kingdom.

Anyway that’s it for today. Tomorrow I shall tell you about some of the other animals we met on our visit to this amazing place. I will also be uploading more images from the day but please bear with me as I have taken 700 photographs and need go through them and decide which ones I want to upload to my gallery.

Many thanks as always for reading – all comments appreciated are most. I hope you will check back to read my next instalment once I have written it.

All the Fun of the Fair

So the beginning of a new week is upon us and as usual I’m wondering where the weekend went, Mondays just come round far too quickly for my liking! This weekend we were quite busy but I still didn’t get everything I wanted to do ticked off my list.

On Friday evening my husband Dave and I took a trip to the fair, there was a travelling fun fair in town and I wanted to go and try taking some long exposure shots of the rides. I love the kinds of pictures you can get from them with the trailing lights in different colours creating a blur accross the dark sky. I did a bit of reading up before we went on what kind of settings I would need to use as it would be my first attempt at this kind of photography and it would also give me a chance to try out my new remote shutter switch which was one of my birthday presents.

When we arrived at the fair I was a little disapointed as it was quite small, there were only a few rides and most of them were aimed towards smaller children, were quite tame and they didn’t look like they would give the kind effect I was looking for. There was a Twister/Switchback, Waltzers and a ride which has a long seat where the riders sit in a line and swings from left to right before finally going all the way over the top and back down the other side. We were there already so I decided I may as well have a go!

My first attempt was at the Twister. I set up the camera on the tripod only to discover that I seem to have lost one of the securing bolts! Luckily this didn’t render the tripod useless but it’s something I need to sort out sooner rather than later. I had a play with the remote shutter switch and it was really easy to use, definitely something I can see myself using in the future.

I got myself all ready and then I just had to wait for the ride to start moving which took a while as it was quite quiet. Once it started I just tried a variety of different settings to see how they altered the resulting photographs. Even though the pictures from this ride have come out quite well I think you get a better result from the rides that tend to go up in the air rather than the ones that stay at eye level. Here are a few of the shots I took, you can see how they vary.

As you can see the longer exposure creates a series of coloured trails from the lights on the various parts of the ride.

This wetted my appetite to try some shots of the other ride as I had a feeling it would give a much better effect, the ground was quite uneven and these could do with a bit of levelling in Photoshop but you get the general idea.

As you can see the lights on this create a circular effect as the ride goes up and over, the second picture has a shorter exposure so the circles aren’t totally complete. I much prefer this effect than the trails on the Twister – what do you think?

Lastly I tried taking some shots of the Waltzer – my favourite ride. This didn’t really create many trails due to the lights being fixed and not moving with the ride. I did get some nice star shaped bursts from the static lights though.

After this I decided to pack up the camera and enjoy the fair by going on the Waltzers. As it was almost the end of the evening the ride seemed to go on for much longer than usual and by time we came off both Dave and I were staggering around and feeling dizzy hahaha!

Now I’ve had a bit of a practice and feel a bit more confident about which settings I need to use I definitely want to try this again but next time for a full evening shoot. The next time the fair comes to town will be the end of October time ready for the local fireworks display, it will be better then as it is a much larger fair with better rides so I am already looking forward to that – hopefully I will be able to get some better pictures next time.

I shall update you on the rest of my weekend tomorrow as I think that’s enough for today. As always thank you for reading and please comment if you’ve enjoyed it.

My First Published Photograph

I tend to use Flickr quite a lot as it is a good website for sharing your pictures with others. A few weeks ago I had a message from a website called Schmap via my Flickr account saying they had shortlisted one of my pictures and asking if I would be happy for it to be used in their online Leeds Guide.

Schmap is a website which publishes free travel guides for Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They currently have 199 guides available on their website including individual city or island guides. All the guides are accessed on their website but can be printed using their downloadable software.

The request came from the Managing Editor, Emma Williams and it clearly stated that they offer no payment for publication; this of course always opens a can of worms with professional photographers. Whereas I looked at the request as a way to get more coverage for my photography a lot of other people have told me that you should never allow someone use of your image for free. However I am in no way a professional photographer, this is not my business but something that I see as an enjoyable hobby and just being approached for the use of my image is reward enough for me at this point in time, although in the future maybe I will reach a stage where I personally feel I can ask for a fee.

After a bit of consideration I decided to respond with a yes, after all there was no guarantee they would actually decide to use the picture anyway. I went away and had a very enjoyable weekend at a birthday BBQ for me put on by some friends and didn’t think anything more of it. When we returned home on Sunday I had received another message from Emma telling me that they were pleased to let me know that my picture had been included in their Leeds Guide – my first ever published photograph and hopefully not my last!

The photo was of a National Trust property called Nostell Priory in Wakefield which is where some friends of mine were thinking of getting married next year and is shown above. Not one of my best pictures in my opinion however I am very pleased to have been included in the guide and it was a really nice surprise to have been asked. It has also given me a bit more confidence and has spurred me on to learning how to really make the most of my camera and improve my pictures. To me at this point in time that is more important and rewarding than a monetary payment.

I’ve added some of my favourite photographs I have taken to the site - you will see these at the bottom of the page. If you would like to see a larger view of any of the images just click on them and it will take you through to my Flickr page. As always please feel free to leave me a comment if you wish, I like reading them either on here or on my Flickr images.

Over the weekend I am hoping to get out and about with my camera and take some shots I want to test out my new lens and get some practice before the big cats shoot next week.

Happy Thursday everybody!

Hello!

This is my first post on my blog so if you are reading then thanks for stopping by.

Last week it was my birthday and I turned thirty five. I started thinking about where I am in my life and where I want to be by time I’m forty. I realised that as much as I have a great life with a fantastic husband, a great family and amazing friends I sometimes feel that I haven’t achieved much with my life so far and that I would like to use the next five years to change this.

Since buying my first SLR camera in February of this year my interest in photography has increased. When asked if there was anything I would like for my birthday by my husband some new equipment for my camera was on the top of my list. So as part of my presents I received some great accessories for using with my Canon 40d – a new memory card, remote shutter switch, cleaning kit and a variety of different filters. I am sure these items are going to come in very handy and I’m looking forward to testing them out.

I also decided to treat myself to a new lens using money received from my parents and opted for the Canon 55 – 250mm IS which arrived this morning. At the moment I have two lenses, the 17 -85mm IS lens which came with my camera which gives good results but sometimes the lack of zoom frustrates me somewhat and the 50mm 1.8 EF lens which I find is great for doing portraits. Later on this month I’m going on a photography outing to the Wildlife Heritage Foundation in Ashford to shoot big cats and I know that I really need a lens with better zoom to get the best pictures I can, this is one of my other reasons for purchasing the nifty two fifty. I’m determined to get some great shots while I’m there and hopefully having this lens will help.

My photography is definitely one of the things I would like to work on over the next few years. I have a few other things I’d like to do but at the moment they are simply ideas in my head rather than actual plans so for the time being I’m going to concentrate on my photography and see where that takes me. Tonight I’m going to start uploading a few images onto my site and working on my galleries so I should have something to show you all soon – hopefully you will be back to check them out.

That’s it for today – many thanks for reading. Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday!