Canon CPS+ Wildlife Day – Lingfield

     

There are four galleries of images:

General Observations

The Otters

The Foxes

The Squirrels, a Wildcat and Owls 

This was THE trip I had been waiting for in the series of CPS+ Days Canon has been organising, and the tribulations of the M25 disappeared as soon as I arrived at the venue, knowing the forecast for the weather was good and certainly the trip down had not suggested otherwise. Although I felt I had arrived reasonably early, the Registration area was already thronged with photographers in the de rigeur camouflage jackets with long wide aperture lenses equally camouflaged slung over shoulders all chatting in animated conversation. The only faces I recognised all belonged to Canon, I saw no familiar faces amongst the photographers themselves, but that may in fact due to my failing memory!

Upon registration we acquired wristbands designating groups to make the managing of the numbers work smoothly; we also each were given a timetable and a handy notebook and pencil, though with many of us toting either large bulky lenses, monopods/tripods and in some instances more than one camera body, the opportunity to also take notes was slim, but would certainly come in handy in the future.

The initial Introduction was given by Canon’s Frankie Jim who explained how the day was to be organised; a background to the CPS+ scheme and to let us know that the ‘Toy Shop’ was there to provide us with the full range of bodies and lenses with several staff members there to offer any technical help we might need.

      

My group were the first to set off for live action – the first port of call being the otters followed by followed by the foxes, red and black squirrels and a wild cat, after which we returned to the meeting area for coffee, tea and biscuits and the first of two talks by the speakers for the day, Danny Green and Mark Sisson.

The first talk was given by Mark with some excellent images and the stories behind them taken from his travels around the globe. Here was a man versed in the need to create images that could be used by designers with areas of background that were uncluttered by distracting detail to allow for headlines and paragraphs of copy to fill the pages of magazines.

We then broke for a sandwich lunch before going out to the fields to shoot birds; owls, both static and in flight, returning after this to another talk this time from Danny Green, both notably very different in their styles, and both stressed how much care needs to be taken in preparation, and how sometimes getting the shots they needed may have needed several trips before they were satisfied. Both speakers definitely engaged with their audience with much humour and great interest from the audience.

Altogether, a thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding day that was deservedly appreciated by all who attended – my thanks and compliments to Canon for working so hard to make the day successful.

Canon Landscape Day at Beaulieu

The trip around the M25 to reach the M3 on Tuesday was one of the slowest on record for me. I had allowed an extra half-hour for traffic and an equal amount to allow me to arrive early, and only just managed to make it with five minutes to spare. Not an auspicious start!

On the bright side, literally, the weather was wonderful for this time of year, and I did not consider it cold, the parking and meeting up with the welcomers was excellent; the red umbrellas were only needed for recognition, not for fending off British weather for a change. It was suggested could leave our kit in the vehicles to walk to the Treehouse, but with the benefit of hindsight I could have popped a memory card into my pocket. It was interesting to note that the walk to the Treehouse was obviously to inform us that Landscape Photography was always going to involve some trekking; we were not going to expect to take such images by casually leaning out of a car window – an interesting subliminal message to presage the talks to follow.

On this walk I met two other attendees, and upon arrival we were met by another who had stepped out of his car to ask where the venue was, and there was no way we were going to let him think he could park up and just walk in, when we had just made the trip on foot, which gave us a giggle! There was no place to park here I hasten to add.

After a gathering for tea or coffee we headed for the room for the talks, this time for me taking the route via the rope walkway; I am not sure my traverse helped others feel particularly well-balanced and I was reminded of that movie of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge.

The two talks with a break between for food and drinks were both excellently delivered with some magnificent examples of David Noton’s work and his tales and reminiscences from his colleague Jon Gooding were well chosen to illustrate the amount of preparation and understanding of his subject that had gone into what sometimes had been only moments when the scenes could have been captured and present their beauty. Both talks were illuminating and humourous and were much appreciated by the audience whose numerous questions showed their keenness to learn more from this extremely talented yet self-effacing photographer and good speaker.

After queuing to borrow from the vast array of both camera bodies and lenses and in my case to take a brief look at a pre-production EOS7D MkII we set off back to our vehicles for the journey to Pigbush our location for the afternoon. Both David and Jon took small groups to discuss filters and techniques, and a few split up to put their newly-acquired knowledge into practice. I had chosen to borrow a Tilt-Shift lens and a body, both of which were unfamiliar, and this resulted in my missing a rainbow which appeared in the scene I was trying to capture, illustrating the necessity of understanding one’s kit – I promptly decided to continue using kit I knew intimately and the few pictures I subsequently took were a personal disappointment.

However I learned a lot and found the day rewarding despite my personal poor performance. In handing back the borrowed equipment, I also managed to have a chat with Frankie Jim from canon, who was able to tell what fault had developed in my 300mm lens which I had hoped to have delivered for repair. The journey back though not speedy was a vast improvement over the journey down.