Heather Angel

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6 days ago

Tips for Textures

Textures abound in the natural world – whether they appear as irregular formations or as regular patterns. Large scale textures occur in eroded rock canyons, as dried cracked mud, ripples on a sandy beach, or as the hardened crust of rope lava in Hawaii, the Galápagos and Iceland. On a smaller scale, look amongst the plant world, for textures on the bark of trees, on buds, fruits, [...]

2 weeks ago

Wilderness Travel 1 Rainforests – Essential Gear

For most people, travelling to a tropical rainforest area is rarely as simple as a single flight. Often it will involve several flights and then a road or river trip. Therefore, you want to make sure you pack essential items which will enable you can continue taking pictures in this hot and humid habitat with such a high biodiversity of plants and wildlife. Rainforests are one of the most [...]

4 weeks ago

20 Tips for Insects on Flowers

Photographing insects on flowers can be hugely rewarding as well as immensely frustrating – especially when the quarry takes flight, just before the shutter is released. Having spent the last four years concentrating on flowers and their pollinators I'm able to share some of the pitfalls which, if overcome, can make insect photography infinitely more rewarding. No doubt we all have our own [...]

1 month ago

Magnificent Magnolias

Magnolia flowers are quite irresistible, no matter how many times you take them, each year they lure you in for a closer look and then you are hooked.  2012 has been a tragic year for avid magnolia snappers here in southern Britain. After an abnormally warm March, which induced buds to break weeks earlier than usual, the temperatures plummeted to freezing at night. The result of this freak [...]

1 month ago

Backlighting Basics

Backlighting helps to define the outline of a solid subject or to bring vibrant colours to life. Backlit landscapes and wildlife depend on the sun shining in the right place at the right time; whereas with macro subjects you can enhance them with your own light. Firstly, let's look at the basic essentials for helping to achieve a striking backlit shot. Use a lens hood (or even your hand) to cut [...]

3 months ago

Faking It

Even before digital days there were ways in which images of the natural world could be faked: not least by placing autumnal maple leaves equidistantly spaced out on a rock beside water. You only have to have half an eye to see that that never happens in reality because leaves fall in a random way. Now digital imagery gives us the ability to add or subtract whatever we want to any image. With [...]

3 months ago

Nikon PB4 Bellows Reborn

Recently I unearthed my old Nikon PB4 bellows (bought new in 1982) only to find the black paint was flaking off both outside and inside the bellows. Knowing the current PB6 bellows does not have the shift and tilt facility on the front extension, I was loathe to jettison my beloved unit. Therefore, I sent it to Gray’s of Westminster in London – a specialist Nikon dealer that sells not [...]

3 months ago

A Natural Plant Support

I have written before about using a Plamp to support the plant stem. There is nothing better – providing you can use the tripod or there is a handy branch for fixing the anchor end of the Plamp. However, there are many times when working on open ground – such as sand dunes, deserts or grasslands – when there isn't a bush or tree in sight, so you may then have to resort to plan B; [...]

4 months ago

Working with Wind

Wind can be a nightmare when working with a long lens on a tripod.  Even with a heavy tripod, working with strong gusts is a risky business; quite apart from the struggle to mount the camera securely on the tripod, there is still the risk of it blowing over or even gear being dowsed with seawater if a breaking wave is misjudged. On the night of 15 October 1987, Michael Fish, a British [...]

4 months ago

Photo Accessories that Fail Security Checks

I was with a photo group and after shooting all day, it was a rush to get to Alice Springs airport, so although I knew I had placed  a nail file and scissors in my checked baggage, there was no time to go through my photo pack. I was the last in our group to go through security where three alum keys and watchmakers screwdrivers were spotted in my pack.  They were about to be [...]

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