News and Events

As I begin to look towards the next few months of photography I think it's always useful to look back at some basic pointers that have helped me over the years to Improve and capture the images I have been looking for. It is very easy to get stuck in a rut and the hobby you love can seem more like a chore. Here are my top ten pointers to keep your images fresh and your photography moving forward.

Practice- It may seem obvious but getting out with your camera once a month is not going to cut it. If you can keep your kit close at hand so that you can even slip away in a half hour lunch to capture some images.

Right Time- This is particularly important with wildlife, flora and landscape photography. Want to photograph Sand Martins, perhaps best done in the spring or summer months. This is an obvious example but some things can be a lot more subtle and the window of opportunity may be small. You may have a great idea for a landscape shot that has the sun rising behind a particular tree, although the sun rises in the east it varies its position wildly over the months.

Right Place- You may have a strong desire to photograph a particular bird or animal. Research it, find out where it is common to give yourself the best chance of capturing it. For an example, twelve years ago I was obsessed with capturing images of common buzzard. Fine, a common bird, however twelve years ago they where very scarce in east Nottinghamshire. Had I travelled to the west I could have saved myself a lot of time and effort.

Know Your Equipment - Todays digital SLR is a very complex piece of kit. Most of us are guilty of only using a small percentage of its capability. Do your practice and testing at home with a cuppa. Theres nothing worse than being presented with the shot of your life only to be frantically searching through menus to get the right setting and looking up to find the moment is gone.

Have The Right Equipment - I can really relate to this one. Have you ever had to drill a hole in a wall to fit some shelves? Your drill bit needs to be 6mm but you don't have one so you use a 4mm and wiggle it around a bit to make the hole big enough. The raw plug only goes three quarters of the way in because the hole is to narrow at the bottom so you force it in and perhaps snip the top of the plug off with pliers. You follow this procedure with all six holes and after a couple of hours toil you fit the shelves feeling very pleased with yourself. Two weeks later someone puts a book on the shelf weighing slightly more than a well thumbed Barbara Cartland and the shelves fall off the wall bringing half the plaster with them. And the moral of the story, get the right equipment for the job you are doing and you will complete it in half the time and to your long term satisfaction. I think you get the point.

Post Processing- Mmmm I'm guilty of this one. Some of us love to be outside taking the pictures and hate to sit at the computer processing them. You have to learn to love it or at least tolerate it. Many SLRs produce there images in RAW format. This is an apt description. The images information is all there but it needs polishing to be fully appreciated, unfortunately for us the type of polish differs greatly depending on how your images is to be presented. In programs like photoshop the settings used to prepare an image for website presentation are very different from those used to produce an A3 print. Experiment and get a standard set of procedures for each medium and then tweak them from there for the best results. Believe me it will/ save you time in the long run.

Look After Your Kit - Its very tempting throw your kit back in the corner of the room when you have been out imaging all day. The problem with this is that if you don't maintain some order I can guarantee the next time you are out you either can't find that vital component when you need it or you'll spend hours removing dust spots from/your award winning image in photoshop.

Give Yourself A Project- It happens to us all at some point, you find you are going out to the same places and imaging the same things. Be bold, set yourself a project, something you've never captured before, in a new place. Now all/ of a sudden your excited again, you've got to research it, you've got the ups and downs of success and failure. I can thoroughly recommend it.

Set Up Your Own Website- Proud of your images? Think they're great, well maybe others will too. One of the problems with digital photography is that many of us go out take pictures and then hide them away on a hard drive on our computers. I would urge you all to set up a basic website and immediately your images are available to a world audience.

Join Photography Forums- Yes, there are others out there. other people who love to get up at the crack of dawn and stand in a misty field waiting for that mystical and magical light. There are many forums out there with photographers of all levels posting there images, and not only posting images but asking for advice and giving it. In my experience photographers are a very generous bunch and love helping people out with constructive criticism, don't forget we've all been there before. Google it and drop in to take a look at the images that are being posted and the level of advice being given. Find one you like, join and post an image. There are a couple listed in my links to get you started.

Finally The Most Important Eleventh- Remember the others in your life. I would imagine that dragging the wife and kids out to stand in a field at four in the morning sounds like bliss to you. However, I can guarantee that when you said you where going to take the wife and kids out at the weekend this wasn't what she had in mind. As a rule if I'm out at one day of the weekend the other is reserved for family time. Although I have been accused of having the best weather for when I'm out with the camera. Believe me a little Karma at home will improve your photography.


Thanks for taking the time to read this, if anyone has any additions please let me know and i will add them to the list. I'm always keen to learn.

After being away for a while the website is now up and running. Over the next few weeks I intend to make some major changes to its layout, partly due to feedback from users.

Hopefully this will make it far easier for clients to find the images they want and speed up the process of order to delivery. Please note however that there will always be a slight lag as I do not print off images on cheap ink jet printers. All my image requests are sent online to Peak Imaging, one of the countries top processing labs. This ensures fantastic quality but does increase the time slightly as I wait for delivery.

I will also be busy updating content to the site. July sees us heading up to the Isle of Mull where I will again try for those elusive otters, more on this later. I will continue to supply images to Alamy and Getty Images. Since I last updated the site I have had many articles and images published in local and national magazines, I hope to continue with this and share some of this content on the site.

Finally, if you have any questions on my photography, or improving your own, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Scott

Unfortunately I have not had the time to update my blog recently. Fortunately for me it's not a case of having nothing to tell you, more the lack of time available due to the volume of work I have on at the moment. A brief summary of my recent activity follows.

We spent a week up in Scotland recently and ventured further up than normal, staying in what was advertised as a secluded lighthouse above Gairloch. What we were not told was that the secluded lighthouse was also a hostel complex! No week of seclusion we had hoped for and the wildlife was pretty sparse too. I spent a lot of time on the look out for otter signs but to be honest the landscape just didn't feel quite right in this area and that proved to be the case. In the end I broke out the landscape kit and had a dabble at that so all was not lost.

Good news on our return was that one of my images has made it to the finals of Eden Channels photography competition, so a trip down to London at the end of Septemeber beckons.

I recently decided to combine my photography with the skill of article writing and this has been rewarded with my work appearing in Nottinghamshire Life magazine. I am currently working on my third article for the publication which may appear in the October issue. On the publishing front I was also the Reader Hero in Digital SLR magazines August Issue.

I have spent a good few evenings recently at my local badger site getting some new images with an article in mind and once this work is complete I hope to try and get some more hare images.

As some of you may have noted I have also branched out into sports photography and have covered a couple of time trials recently. I have another booked in for the end of August. Let me know what you think, good and bad as this is a skill I'm still very much developing!

More Later!

Scott

I have recently had an article with pictures published in Nottinghamshire Life and Countryside. The article was written by me and describes my exploits last summer and autumn while trying to obtain images of Marsh harriers at Langford Lowfields RSPB reserve. There is a link to the article online below or why not grab a hard copy from the newsagent! Just turn to page 50.

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=M0n78qT1Z60w&PBID=a85870cf-c11a-479e-be2b-2850d2c39ab6&skip=

Regular visitors to my website will have probably noticed a few changes over the last few weeks. After a large amount of thought I have come to the decision to diversify the site to cover more aspects of digital imagery.

As many of you will know, as well as a wildlife lover and photographer I have for many years been a competitive cyclist, duathlete and latterly triathlete. I have always found that if you have an interest in something then taking images of it, should, enable you to use that experience to produce better images. I have had a number of requests from associates in the cycling world if I would take some images of competitors during events, and, this is the direction I will look to expand the site over the next few months.

As well as expanding into sports photography I will continue to build up my portfolio of wildlife images and supply images and articles for various publications.

The website name has also changed to scotttilleyphotography.co.uk, so if you have a link to my site please amend it to the new title, although my web provider has linked the old website name to the new one so the change should be seamless!
More exciting news to come in the following months so please check back soon.

Scott

After much deliberation I have decided to expand my portfolio of images to include sports photography. Anyone who has looked at my website and looked at my history will know that for over twenty years, with a couple of breaks, I have been involved with cycling. I started at a fairly late age, about 20, when one of my work colleagues introduced me too North Notts Olympic Road Club. I really enjoyed my time here and progressed from riding an old Dawes Edge bike to having a custom built Dave Lloyd. And eventually these lead me to getting the Time trialists Holy Grail and getting under the hour for twenty five miles. Eventually we moved from the Mansfield area and after a particularly hard season I lost the appetite for getting on the bike anymore.

I can’t remember why I went back to the bike, I suppose once a cyclist always a cyclist! I know that to keep fit and being short of time I had been doing a fair amount of running when I didn’t have the time to get out on the bike. I was also juggling this with wildlife photography!

At some point I had seen the Carsington Duathlon advertised and a run bike run seemed the natural progression. I really enjoyed these and again the next progression seemed to be to do the full triathlon, only problem, I couldn’t do front crawl! So swimming lessons followed, and from my first lesson where kicking with the board saw me actually going backwards due to me totally inflexible ankles, I managed to get down to a reasonable eight minutes for four hundred metres. With the support of Lincoln Triathlon Club who I joined, I competed for a couple of years and finally finished off with a half iron man, the Vitruvian at Rutland Water.

I think this really lead to burn out for me. I had gone from a couple of runs and a bike per week to nine training sessions. When I wasn’t training I was thinking about when I could train! My photography also became completely neglected. So, I had to put a stop to the triathlon and try and work out some sort of balance. Hopefully I have now achieved this.

I am now a member of Desperate Measures. This is principally a cycling team set up by my mate and also ex North Notts rider Mark Pashley. There are only about eight of us and we have little organisation, which is probably how we like it! We do however have a Qatar branch of the club (my brother who now works out there). We tend to do a mixture of events, non-too seriously.

This leads me onto the decision to include some sports photography on my website. I will probably manage around ten events per year. Starting with time trials and road races with Mountain bike, duathlon and triathlon to follow. I think I am in a unique position having competed in all these events to know where the best shots are to be had and hopefully the riders will appreciate this when they see the images. It will also make a nice change to know that I’m guaranteed to get the shot and won’t have to where camouflage clothing!

Keep dropping in on the site to see new wildlife imagery and some stunning sports photography at www.scotttilleyphotography.co.uk

I was recently asked for an interview by Photography Office. They are an online blog/magazine designed to be an online source of inspiration for photographers and anyone interested in the art of photography. I was asked some questions with regard to my work and not only where I found inspiration but my tips for other photographers. You can read the full interview here http://www.photographyoffice.com/ Please let me know what you think!

Regards

Scott

Equipment Review – Manfrotto 410 Junior Geared head
After years of trusting the support of my camera and various lenses to a variety of ball type tripod heads I finally took the fairly expensive step of investing in a Manfrotto geared head. Was it worth its £145 price tag? Have a read of my review and find out.






The Ball heads I have used in the past have been adequate for most forms of photography. Most landscapes have the camera and lens in a fairly balanced position, the same is true for wildlife images if shooting from a fixed position. The one area of photography that has caused me many frustrations with this set up has been macro photography. If you’ve attempted this the following scene might be very familiar. You manage to set the tripod and camera up on a very small and delicate flower or insect, you tighten the ball head into position, remove your hand and look through the viewfinder, only to find that the camera has sagged on the head and you now only have half the image you wanted. Now it’s a case of estimating how much the lag was and resetting the lens pointing slightly above your target. No not right again? And so it goes on.

This is where the Monfrotto 410 Geared head comes in.





Head Description
From my previous tripod heads this is a pretty weight affair weighing in at 1.2kg. It has a capacity to carry up to 5kg so should be up to most situations.
The head attaches to the tripod using a 3/8 female thread, which is pretty standard and you get a large secure quick release plate that attaches to the base of the camera. This has ¼ and 3/8 inch screws which you can change dependant on your camera. Once this is in place you simply rest the plate on the top of the head and it smoothly clips into place. Once on it feels very sturdy and secure. The camera is removed by pressing the button on the large lever at the side of the plate and pushing the lever at the same time.
Below the plate area you are presented with three large rubberised nobs. Turning any one of these will move the camera either tilt forward or back, move from side to side or flip the camera over up to 90 degrees. The outer part of each nob is designed for micro adjustment of the camera. On the inside of each nob is collar which when twisted removes the gearing aspect of the head and allows you to move the full range of movement rapidly.
There are precise scales on the side of the head to tell you what angle you are shooting at and there is also a small bubble level to let you know the tripod is level to start with.





My Conclusion

Well is it worth it? In my opinion it has to be worth every penny, particularly for the macro photographer. You can get extremely precise adjustment and know that the camera is rock steady in position. If a breeze moves the delicate flower head slightly you can reposition in seconds without fighting for half an hour with a sagging ball head! Macro photography requires enough skill and patience as it is, everything has to be very precise and if you start to add flash and reflectors into the equation this head totally removes one headache you can really do without.

This head would not be suitable if you require support that allows the user to rapidly rotate the camera in any given direction, such as photographing birds in flight, although perhaps handheld or a beanbag would be the best option here.

One point to note, I would recommend a robust tripod to twin up with this rather hefty head. Currently I have mine attached to a Giottos professional aluminium tripod which is similarly well built and handles the head well. Would I recommend this head? Yes without a doubt, I really wish I had used this a long time ago.

I absolutely love wildlife photography. For me it is not just getting the picture its the research, the hunt and then occasionally the outstanding image. Sometimes, however, its all too easy to forget why we are doing something, and why we enjoy it. This can go for anything in life. Mark Cavendish, in a documentary about his life as a professional cyclist touched on this when he exclaimed, "I'm a professional bike rider, do you think I like sitting behind a teammate for five hours a day". His point is, that as a leisure rider you can go out today, or maybe tomorrow, you can go for ten miles or a hundred miles. As a professional you ride today, you ride tomorrow and you ride where the team wants you to ride.

As you become more professional with wildlife photography you can be in danger of doing exactly the same thing. Clients have requested this for a certain date, never mind the weathers rubbish and the normal site where you would take the image is no longer available, it has to be done for then. This might be the same for two, three or four other clients. You fear that the activity you love is just becoming a job, you might as well have stopped in your old 9 to 5 profession!

This has happened to me on a couple of occassions. Its really important to step back at these times and remind yourself how lucky you are to be doing what you love. The best way to do this I have found is to go out as a leisure photographer for a day again. Have nothing in particular in mind, just take the camera and see what you come up with. Its amazing how a day using this approach can result in some really creative work, and leave you invigorated for the work you have ahead.

So if you feel like working as a professional is dragging you down. Let it go for a day and remember why you picked up a camera in the first place!





Scott

I'm certainly hoping not! Over the last week I have discovered that the image stabalisation on my Sigma 18-200 lens has malfunctioned, and after buying some accessories for my flash to hopefully, enhance my macro images, have now got a broken flash gun. The cost to repair the flash in particular is quite laughable, only £175 before parts! Seeing as the newer version of the flash is now on sale new for £199 I may have to take it apart myself.

On to the photography. Although now is a good time to get back into some macro imagery my equipment failure has hampered me a little. I did manage to get a reasonable image of a common blue darter although the swaying reed was a challenge. The next few months will be taken up with supply images to the Oxford Picture Library, in the main, but I am always on the lookout for that special opportunity that may be just around the corner.

As some of you may know, as well as a wildlife photographer I am also a keen cyclist and over the years i have time trialed, road raced, mountain biked and branched out into duathlon and triathlon. With this in mind I would like to take this opportunity to send my deepest sympathy to the family and friends of Wouter Weylandt who sadly died in the Giro D'italia today after a heavy crash on a fast decent. It reminds us all how fragile life is, my he rest in peace.

Scott

As an update to my original blog post, I have now added the Oxford Picture Library to the links section of my website. I am hoping to eventually get a direct link button on my home page for ease of use, in the meantime, please take a look. If you want to search specifically for my images you can use the advanced search option and search for photographer. Just enter "scott tilley" and away you go.

I am really pleased to announce that I am now being represented by the Oxford Picture Library who will now handle all my stock wildlife imagery. The Oxford Picture Library is one of the most highly thought of libraries and is the dedicated wildlife arm of the Photolibrary stock group.

At the present time i have a small number of images on the site but over the next five years I hope to increase this number greatly. I will also be putting a direct link from my site to the library on here very shortly.

Obviously my work will reflect the needs of the library, however, I am also building up my macro photography kit at the moment. I feel this is an area I have neglected a little in the past and is also under preresented on photography stock sites. Please take a look at the site on a regular basis as these images make there way into my showcase.

Scott

Just to prove that I don't spend all my time sitting in hides or stalking after wildlife, this is an image taken at the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust Headquarters in Nottingham. Pictured is myself and the Wildlife Trusts Tracy Lawton, presenting me for with my award in the Winter Wildlife Category. Although this is way out of my comfort zone I have to say I did quite enjoy it! It was great to meet Tracy and the other wildlife trust staff as well as representitives from the competition sponsors, Natural England and my fellow winners. There was a considerable amount of "talking shop", probably due to the fact that wildlife photography can be a fairly insular activity.

I was really pleased with this award, not least because it was voted on by the public, and I have to say there where some superb images that made the top 100. Hopefully I can continue this success in the future.



Scott

Just to prove that wildlife photographers don't spend all there time lying around in the undergrowth, heres a link to the Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust Photography Competition prize presentation.

I was pleased to know it wasn't just me who was out of their comfort zone!

http://www.nottinghamshirewildlife.org/news/item/photo-competition-winners/

Scott

I am really pleased to announce that one of my images has been rated as "highly Commended" in the International Garden Photographer of the Year competition. All of the photographs entered in this competition are reviewed over a 10 week period by some of the leading garden photographers in the world, as well as representatives of Kew Gardens, the National Trust and the Royal Photographic Society.

This competition is rated as the world's premier garden photography event and you are competing against the best in the world, both amateur and professional. Entries number in the thousands, if not tens of thousands and to be recognised and win a award is a great achievement.

Coming as it does after my recent successes in a local photography competition and winning picture of the week in the American magazine "Natures Best", it's difficult to see how this year can get much better!

My photography business continues to grow and this does limit the time I have to enter more competitions, however, I do have ideas for at least another two this year, if I can get the images I want.

Anyway, heres a sneak preview of the winning image before it is published in May 2011.

All the best.


Scott

Despite the recession I am very busy at the moment, and my work load increased significantly in January when I signed a five year contract to supply wildlife images to the Oxford Picture Library. This is a dedicated wildlife library who operate as a part of the photolibrary group. I am really pleased to be taken on by this prestigious library.

The library have supplied me with a list of the wildlife images they particularly need to include in there database, and the brown rat is on the list. I know he isn't many peoples favourite but you do have to admire this cunning survivor. I have located a site where there are significant numbers of rats, although numbers are due to be cut shortly! And have gained permission to enter the site to get some images, easier said than done! I have had up to ten of these little critters racing around under the undergrowth, but unfortunately for me they only venture out of here as the light starts to fade.

As facinating as they are its always important to remember that rats in particular carry a number of nasty deseases. Weil's disease is particularly nasty and can be fatal, so I'm extra careful to touch as little as possible when on site and to wash as soon as i've finished.

Here's one of the few shots I've managed so far with a rat out in the open, well sort of!



Scott

I am really pleased to announce that one of my images has been chosen by The Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust to be displayed at the Museum of Nottingham Life in Nottingham. This was a local competition and my image was entered under the heading "Winter Wildlife". It is now down to public vote to chose the overall winner. So If your in the area pop along and vote for your favourite.

I have also entered another national competition, and my image has been shortlisted. However, at present the results arn't known. Needless to say if it achieves a placing I will let you know, although if you want to see it exhibited it would mean a trip down to London!

Heres the link required for the Wildlife Trust Exhibition.

http://www.nottinghamshirewildlife.org/news/item/wildlife-in-the-picture

More News Later!

Scott

As one of my aims this year was to get some reasonable images of Common Buzzards, I started early. I had noticed this particular buzzard perched on the top of an old hawthorn bush near my local gravel quarry, on a number of occasions. One of the advantages of exploring your local patch on a regular basis is that you tend to notice more each time that you take a look around. I knew from previous visits that there was a large rabbit warren under this hedgerow, and guessed that this was keeping the buzzard interested.

Another advantage for me is that this area is not used by the public, and apart from the very rare dog walker (of which more later!), You can almost guarantee being undisturbed. I then set about building a hide or blind under a nearby hawthorn. I used old branches and then covered this with dry grass and perhaps the only green around in December, Ivy.

Sensibly, this period of activity also coincided with Christmas, a dose of the flu, and I mean flu! And temperatures dropping as low as –14. Not one to be deterred easily I set about some mammoth sessions in the hide. I used road kill pheasants for bait mainly, rabbits that had met the same fate if I could find them. To have success with this sort of project you firstly need to be in the hide while its still dark, and, if possible leave in the dark. With a family, this is a challenge, so I settled for a compromise and would be in the hide in the dark and spend around four to seven hours under cover. Leaving some of the day for family time. A word of caution, one particular session, with temperature at a constant –9 for 6 hours left me with blue hands, even after being fully kitted out for extreme weather. I also had a dilemma when faced with a dog walker walking right past the hide as it was getting light, not wanting him to notice something odd himself and get a scare I decided I would call out “morning”! I think he nearly jumped out of his skin, not that I could see, but we did have a pleasant conversation when he had recovered himself!

I have so far managed one session with the buzzard in attendance (see recent work), but the weather was very poor when this shot was taken and I am still waiting for better conditions to get the image I want. I think I have now clocked up at least forty hours in the hide! Last weekend was a complete wash out as I couldn’t find any bait, and I’m struggling this week with only a road kill squirrel to add to the larder!

I hope to add some more images soon, please wish me luck for next weekend, I think I’m starting to get cabin fever!

Update
Well, I'm afraid that after fifty hours in the hide tomorrow morning will be my last attempt for a while at tempting down a buzzard. I have so many photographic commitments coming up over the next few months! Hopefully I'll have some luck. I think here in Eastern Nottinghamshire the buzzard is still not as widespread as elsewhere in the country, consequently there territories tend to be bigger and the chances of one appearing where you want is smaller. But, as one project ends, another begins.

2nd Update

To prove things never go as planned and that wildlife is by its nature "wild" and unpredictable I had no buzzard visits on Sunday. However, the visit I did have was much more unexpected and welcome! A juvenile Marsh Harrier spent an hour eating the road kill pheasant, again unfortunately in very poor light. As there are reckoned to be 40,000 breeding pairs of buzzard in the uk and under 400 pairs of Marsh Harrier I think you can count this as a bit of a result! I am almost certain that this is one of the two young Marsh Harriers from the first breeding pair of Marsh Harriers in Nottinghamshire. These bred at Langford Lowfields (RSPB), just across the river from my site. I have put a number of images in recent work so please take a look.

Anyway, here’s a mobile phone snapshot of me in the hide.



Scott

Hi to all the regular visitors to my site. Just a quick note to wish you all a happy christmas and new year. For me, its been a pretty sucessful year as regards photography and I hope to continue in 2011. Like most of you I'm fully engaged in family activities at the moment, however, I do have a site with good potential for buzzard images that the whole family will be helping with hide construction this afternoon! If I'm sucessful, images will be appearing soon. Enjoy the rest of your christmas and I wish you all a prosperous new year. More soon.

Scott

Being a wildlife photographer I am always open to try and grab an opportunity to get out with the camera. The recent snow lead to my daughters school closing, and this suddenly presented me with a chance to get out for a snowy walk, and of course the camera came along.

We went out to specifically look for signs of row deer and brown hares, and although we saw plenty of prints in the snow we didn't see them in the flesh. On the way back we spotted a stoat tearing around in the snow. He was clearly hunting for the many rabbits that reside in this old gravel quarry.

We moved into a position to get pictures, however, by this time the stoat had disappeared. From experience I knew that if we waited a while the stoat may be back. Ten minutes later we would have been hard pressed to see him anyway as the snow had begun to bucket down and we could hardly see.

I decided that we needed to get under cover, but as we got up I noticed the stoat racing around betwen the old garages on the site. Bent double we hurried over, and it was then we noticed a rabbit racing towards us. Unfortunately for him he decided that we where more of a threat and turned and raced off into the area where we had just seen the stoat. Like a flash the stoat met the rabbit head on and what followed was a five minute wrestle for life where there was only going to be one winner. The stoat had managed to clamp its jaws at the back of the rabbits neck and although the rabbit tried several times to get away he eventually lost the fight.

Although this can be sad to witness, you soon realise as a photographer that this is just life and death in the animal kingdom. It also makes you realise how deadly a killer the stoat is. For an african lion to be as impressive it would probably have to despatch a fully grown elephant alone, and then drag it away!



Scott