Tag Archives: WIldlife

19 February 2026 (Fiona Brims: I am not a wildlife photographer … But …)

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This week we were delighted to welcome Fiona Brims back to Musselburgh. Fiona had previously given us a talk on creative portraiture, where she had talked about her journey from beginner to expert in creative portraiture. This talk was different. Fiona admitted she is no expert at wildlife photography, mainly because she doesn’t like waiting in a hide for hours, but that doesn’t take away the joy of capturing photos of wild animals when the opportunity arises. Fiona recommended the following nature hides

but she usually goes to the public part of the hide, rather than the part reserved for photography bookings. Not being in a photography hide usually means the photos are taken from further away, or are taken from the wrong angle. So, most of the photos are not up to competition standard, but that doesn’t take away the joy of capturing a glimpse of a wild animal in its natural habitat. Fiona’s talk was divided into 4 parts:

  • Wild Birds and Animals. Fiona showed us some of her photographs of wild birds; from a short-eared owl photographed at Sheriffmuir, to a shot of a grey heron taken at close range, which Fiona described as “vicious” (don’t get too close to a heron). Some bird of prey shots came from the Hawk Conservancy Centre in Andover, and the ICBP centre in Newent (which has recently closed). The most captivating shots show an animal doing something different, such as the shot of a red squirrel drinking from a pond in Blairgowrie. A deer with 3 antlers was spotted at St Syrus Nature Reserve in Aberdeenshire, Fiona also compared shots of wild animals she had taken in South Africa and India, showing us the differences between the African and Asiatic lion. You can see some of Fiona’s wildlife photographs in her galleries: Birds of prey; Wildlife of India and African Wildlife.
  • Captive Birds and Animals. Fiona had visited animal sanctuaries, such as World of Wings and Munchester Castle, where you could get closer to some exotic birds, including an Egyptian ibis, a hooded vulture, several different kinds of owl, a goshawk and a black-chested buzzard eagle. Apparently, you can tell the size of a bird’s prey by the size of its talons.
  • Reptiles and Amphibians: We then moved indoors where Fiona showed us some shots of snakes, lizards, geckos and frogs under indoor lighting conditions. Some of the creatures were contained in a glass case, but you can eliminate the reflections from the case by pressing your lens against the glass. She also advised us to take a glass cleaning cloth, because you’ll find these glass cases almost always covered in fingerprints.
  • Creative Creatures: In the final part of the talk, Fiona revealed her expertise in creative compositions; showing us still life creations, where a snake curls around a clock or a raven investigates a model skull. Fiona sometimes uses animals in her creative portraiture, for example as seen in her Vikings gallery.

We finished with tea and biscuits as usual. Thank you Fiona for another fascinating talk.

  • Next Thursday (26th February) we will find out the result of our second set subject competition on the theme of “Emotion”. The deadline for entering the third competition, on the theme of “Comedy”, is a week later on 5th March.

27 November 2025 (Jean Manson: Realm of the Tiger)

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This week we welcomed back Jean Manson to the club to tell us more about her passion for wildlife conservation through the medium of photography. You can see some of Jean’s work in her gallery site and her Zoological Photographic Club page:

https://www.jeanmanson.gallery/browse/

https://zpc-naturefolio.weebly.com/jean-manson.html

Last time, Jean spoke to us about the wildlife in Alaska in “A Fragile Wilderness”, where she had remarked on the sparseness of the human population. This time, we learned about her recent visits to India, where the human population is much denser but there are still national parks devoted to preserving the natural wildlife. In 1973 the Indian government initiated Project Tiger, which set up wildlife reserves to protect the endangered Bengal tiger. Due to the success of that project, India now has the largest tiger population in the world. Jean visited two of those wildlife reserves:

Jean explained how her guides would track the tigers by looking for pugmarks, scratches and tell-tale alarm calls from other animals. She explained how tigers and leopards are in competition with each other, so you tend not to see both at the same time. During her visits she had seen more leopards in Satpura and more tigers in Bandhavgarh. She showed us photographs not only of the majestic tiger and leopard, but of birds, elephants, chital deer, monkeys, giant squirrel and a very rare grey wolf. Jean brought some of the prints and display boards from her recent exhibition at the Biggar Little Festival, and we finished the evening chatting and browsing through the prints. Thank you Jean for a very entertaining and enlightening evening.

  • This Thursday, 4th December, we have our Black and White print competition, judged by Malcolm Lind.
  • It’s also time to prepare entries for the Human Portrait print competition. The hand-in date is 11th December.

16 January 2025 (Gordon Rae: Wild at Heart – A Photographer’s Journey)

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This week we were delighted to welcome award-winning wildlife photographer Gordon Rae to Musselburgh to talk to us about “Wild at Heart – A Photographer’s Journey”. Gordon had last visited a year ago when he judged our human portrait competition and gave us a short talk on the “Birds of Iceland”. Gordon explained that he had started as a farmer in South West Scotland with an interest in landscape photography. A local magazine liked his landscape photographs and signed him up. His career in photography took off when he began photographing the local wildlife, joined Dumfries Camera Club and began giving tours for other photographers. He now gives 10 tours a year. Gordon uses a Nikon camera with a 200-400mm lens and 1.4x teleconverter. He likes to take his shots from close to the ground, which makes it easier to get a narrow depth of field. He also likes to use space in his shots to show the creatures in their environment. You can find some of Gordon’s work on his web site:

https://www.gordonraephotography.co.uk/index.html

Gordon began by showing the wildlife photographed in his local area, including birds and hedgehogs in his garden. Gordon travels around his farm on a quad bike and uses it as a tool to get close to wildlife. His strategy is not to use a hide, but to keep repeating the same actions until the wild animals get used to him and realise he is not a threat. The local hares will let him get close as long as he doesn’t get off the bike. As well as great shots of hares, dippers and kingfishers, there were some unusual dark squirrels and a fantastic shot of a grumpy sparrowhawk. Gordon then took us further afield and showed some fabulous shots of ospreys, grouse and mountain hares taken in Scotland.

In the second half of the talk. Gordon described his adventures on a bear-watching trip to Silver Salmon Creek in Alaska. The journey there was an adventure in itself, with the site only accessible by a small aircraft which landed on the beach! Visitors to Silver Salmon Creek Lodge live and move within the habitat of the bears and need to be constantly on watch. Gordon described some hair-raising encounters with the bears. He witnessed a mother defending her cubs, a bear running towards him to pounce on a salmon, and a bear that came so close that other photographers had turned their cameras on him! The results were some truly breath-taking images. Gordon finished his talk by showing us photographs he captured on a trip to Churchill in Manitoba, Canada. After arriving in the autumn, he witnessed how quickly the Hudson Bay can freeze. This time polar bears were his main subject, although he also captured some images of the local foxes. The polar bears were photographed from the giant tundra vehicle, and the driver was happy to position the vehicle to capture the bears against a more interesting background. Gordon left us all inspired to improve our wildlife photography.

  • Next Thursday we will use our Members Evening slot to have another studio portrait session. We can practise some of the advice we learned from last week’s portrait competition. It will be similar to last year’s studio night, except this time we’ll concentrate on the lighting. Derek will bring along his studio lights, and we can move the lighting around and see how it affects the final result.
  • Please bring your camera on Thursday, plus a tripod and a flashgun if you want to experiment with those.

26 January 2023 (Set Subject Competition B – Wildlife)

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The second part of our set subject competition took place this week, on the theme of “Wildlife”. Steven Beard had won last year’s competition and earned the right to be the judge this year. Steven began by warning members of the strict rules that usually go with wildife photography competitions. The usual definition of wildlife photography is “Photographs documenting various forms of wildlife in their natural habitat“. The creatures portrayed in the photographs should be wild (not domesticated or kept in a zoo) and the habitat should be shown as-is (no cloning, composites or physical alterations). Organisations running competitions, such as Wildlife Photographer of the Year, will usually have strict rules, and will ask you to submit copies of the RAW files that came straight out of your camera to prove you didn’t change anything. Despite the strict rules, there are techniques you can use to improve your images. Cropping and brightness and contrast adjustments are also usually allowed. Having said this, the audience were relieved to hear that Steven would not be taking the rules so strictly. The images would be judged on their impact, on the story they tell, on the connection they make with the viewer, and on their overall quality.

14 members had entered 42 images altogether. There was a wide range of subjects, ranging from birds and insects photographed in the garden to wild animals photographed overseas on safari. Good images were the ones taken roughly at eye level, so there was a connection with the viewer, and which showed a story, such as Elaine Gilroy’s image of a swan carrying her cygnets on her back. Good images were also focussed on the subject and had a sufficiently narrow depth of field to blur the background. Avoiding distractions is difficult if you can’t clone them away. Choosing your camera position can help (if that is possible). Some images had bright objects or bright stripes in the background which could be darkened by burning. There were some images with cloning artefacts, which would have disqualified them from most wildlife photography competitions (but would have been ok for nature photography, where the rules are less strict). It is worth looking over your images carefully at 100% to locate and remove artefacts before submitting them. Also check the corners for distractions. The very best images were the ones with impact when seen amongst the rest. The top scorers were (in reverse order):

  • 5th place (48 points)
    • George Todd
    • John West
  • 4th place (49 points)
    • Gavin Marshall
    • Mike Clark
    • Carol Edmund
  • 3rd place (51 points)
    • Steve Williams
    • Derek Muller
  • 2nd place (54 points)
    • Joe Fowler
  • 1st place (57 points)
    • Malcolm Roberts

The top images were:

  • Goldfinch Deep in Thought (Malcolm Roberts) – 20 points
  • Owl in Flight (Steve Williams) – 20 points
  • Snow Leopards (Joe Fowler) – 19 points
  • Robin (Malcolm Roberts) – 19 points
  • Meal Time (Joe Fowler) – 18 points
  • Blue Tit (Malcolm Roberts) – 18 points
  • Gatekeeper Butterfly (John West) – 18 points
  • Bees Around Honey (Carol Edmund) – 18 points
  • Fly By (Derek Muller) – 18 points

Malcolm Roberts’ score of just 3 points less than full marks earns him the right to judge next year’s competition. Well done Malcolm. The league table after two competitions looks like this:

Joe Fowler (— + 54 = ??)
Malcolm Roberts (49 + 57 = 106)
Steven Beard (52 + — = ??)
George Todd (55 + 48 = 103)
Mike Clark (52 + 49 = 101)
Steve Williams (48 + 51 = 99)
Carol Edmund (50 + 49 = 99)
Derek Muller (46 + 51 = 97)
John West (49 + 48 = 97)
Gavin Marshall (44 + 49 = 93)
Gordon Davidson (49 + 43 = 92)

Malcolm Roberts has jumped up the rankings and leapfrogged George Todd, who is still in a strong position. Joe Fowler and Steven Beard lurk as dark horses. But as this as a “best two out of three” competition there is still everything to play for. Entries for the final part of the competition on “Landscape” are due on 9th February 2023.

A reminder that next week we will be joining Beeslack Pencuik Camera club at Beeslack High School for our annual audio visual evening. Here is a map to help you get there:

https://goo.gl/maps/oEgsHmr3WGDankS58