Thomas

I am back home again, and as lovely as it is to see my family again it is always a photographic let down after spending three days photographing such an exciting subject as the wild horses of the Camargue. For my first foray into wildlife photography I chose quite a tricky subject, as these animals gallop at quite a speed it is not that easy to get well focused shots and you certainly need to know how to use your camera properly. Think of the lazy lion languishing under a tree in the shade, or a giraffe slowly walking across the veldt…galloping horses move at a very fast pace in comparison! After my initial travel problems to get there, I am pleased I have come home with some great images and no mishaps – other than falling in the muddy water on the first day and having a soggy bottom for my first shoot. The mosquitoes there are notorious – one is advised to wear at least two layers of clothing as they can penetrate anything, and we were exceptionally lucky in that we had no mosquitoes at all, due to windier conditions. Thankfully those little blighters cannot fly in the wind and so despite wearing lavish amounts of eau de Deet every day it was not necessary as we never even saw any mosquitoes.

Besides being taught the technical aspects of the photographic shoot, and being advised what settings to use in what conditions, we were advised to think about each image, by slowing down and observing the animal’s behaviour so one knows when to get that perfect shot, observing any behavioural patterns they do…being in the moment and being mindful of what is happening so that one can come away with a great image rather than just a record of the scene obtained through firing off a series of random shots in the ‘spray and pray’ manner. There is much thinking and planning to be done before one even presses that shutter button, and in an ideal world one should spend the first few days just observing animal behaviour before picking up the camera. We were also told to think about the ‘story’ of each image, what story the image is trying to tell, and that too often an image has unnecessary details in it that should be eliminated. So…I will be thinking of the story from now on. For example, if your story is to convey the horses as powerful and strong animals, don’t photograph them in a way that shows them as gentle, beautiful creatures – rather shoot from low down, focus on the action as their muscles work while thundering through the water with hooves up as they run.

We worked with one family of gardians who treated their animals very well and although they were being paid for the use of their animals, the animals came first and they were never made to do something that could harm them. On one of the shoots we wanted the horses to run in a certain area, but as the mud there is like clay and very heavy for the horses to run through, the gardian said it would be too hard for his horses and so we ended up walking quite a way to another area which had better conditions for the horses.

Thanks for all the stars, hearts and lovely comments on my photos from the Camargue – I was pleased to share them with you and I was pleased to reach the number one position on popular for the first time, and have two on the first page at the same time. I will try to catch up with journals today but I also have so many photos to edit – each day was so busy there that I quickly picked a few images for blip without even looking at all of them, and now that I have had a brief look at all of them I have some others that I am also very pleased with.

If anyone is interested, I went with Magic Is Photo Safaris led by Chris Weston and Simon Weir.

Of interest to Fuji users, both Chris and Simon are involved with both Nikon and Fuji, and on this trip Chis was testing the new prototype Fuji that will be released quite soon – no details as it is all being kept under wraps until its announcement, but I know it is a top of the range camera that I suspect will be following on from the XT-1.

Today, Thomas agreed to pose for me as we tried to get a moody, serious portrait - but both of us kept laughing so I am not sure how moody it is!