I wouldn’t normally rate zoos as a great source of photographs, many of the animals are behind fences, there are standoff barriers keeping you back and you’re often only spending a little amount of time with each animal. I’m lucky in so far as my step father is curator of a new zoo in Cromer meaning I get unprecedented access to the animals, early access to the zoo (so very few people around) and the house is in the zoo grounds allowing me spend as much time as I like with each animal and photograph them at the best times of day.

My primary focus was the two pumas that had just arrived. Called pinky and blacky (so called because of the colour of their noses) I spent many hours rattling off shots of these two. Pinky seemed to have settled in very well and spent most of the time on top of one of the large trees that had been put in the enclosure simply watching the world go by. Blacky, on the other hand, had not settled at all.

Despite not being able to go into the enclosure with the cats (they’re far too dangerous) I was able to get up close to the enclosure fence and get some pretty good shots. Even with a nice wide aperture blurring the fence out actually getting decent shots was hard so being able to spend the time with them to get the best poses was a godsend.

Even getting into the enclosures didn’t always help with getting rid of the fences. I spent over 3 hours lying in the aguti enclosure waiting for the perfect shot. Only one of them would come out while I was in there and even then he kept to the edges of the enclosure. By picking some creative angles I was able to get a few shots where it wasn’t apparent that the animal was captive

Despite going for the pumas I actually spent the most time with the marmosets. My usual cry when doing wildlife photography is ‘bigger lens’ and I do most of it with my 70-200, often with a 2x teleconverter. The marmosets, on the other hand, were so inquisitive that I ended up using my 24-70 lens and even my 100mm macro since it’s the only thing that would focus at the kind of distances I was having to deal with. The biggest problem I had was framing the shots before the darted off to another branch as they move incredibly fast. Eventually the monkeys got so comfortable with me around that they were trying to grab the camera and were putting their heads right into the lens hood to check out their reflections.

Unfortunately I lost a day and a half’s shooting as my camera decided to break down mid way through my holiday and I hadn’t brought my spare body. I did manage to get a couple of shots of some of the other animals but I’ll have to go up another time when my camera has been repaired. Hopefully then the rest of the animals will have arrived.

All images in this post can be found at images from… under the pumas, marmosets, aguti and random animals galleries in the cromer zoo section.

You never know what’s going to make a good photograph so I am forever grabbing shots of totally random stuff. Most of it just gets binned but occasionally I get a good shot.

Bark makes for wonderful ‘texture’ shots, especially when the lighting is right. Different trees give different effects and it’s simply a question of experimenting.

Texture shots can be got from all sorts, it’s just a question of looking around and seeing what’s about.

Sometimes it’s simply a question of seeing an interesting rock or tree trunk. Having a lens with a nice wide aperture and good bokeh helps with this kind of shot.

All images in this post can be found at images from… under the random images gallery.

When people think of portrait photography they usually think of contrived shots with a fake backdrop, studio lighting and fake smiles. For me portrait photography is more about capturing real people in the moment. I started doing portraiture quite by accident after a family outing to Bolton Abbey. Rain meant that photographing the Abbey and grounds wasn’t going to happen so I turned the camera on my family instead with some very good results.

While most people say you should use 85-135mm 35mm equivalent lenses for portraits (roughly 70mm to 100mm on my camera) I tend to go for a longer 70-200mm lens, quite often with a 2x teleconveter to give 140-400mm. The shots of my brother and nephew were both done with the teleconverter meaning I could shoot them from quite a distance away and they had no idea they were being photographed, hence the great natural expression.

Ironically enough the 100mm macro is also a great portrait lens giving great bokeh to the backround. The lens is also less intrusive than the 24-70 f2.8 L or the 70-200 f2.8 L meaning people are more at ease (shoving a large lens in peoples faces tends to terrify them).

Of course there is nothing to say you can’t get a bit creative with your portraits. This shot of my niece was done with a 50mm f1.4 close up giving a slightly distorted perspective, and the shot of Poppy is done with the 100mm macro at a very close distance meaning her face fills the frame nicely.

Portraits don’t just have to be of people, they can also be of pets (I would argue that calling pictures of pets ‘wildlife’ photography is stretching a point somewhat), although it can be somewhat harder to get them to do what you want.

All images in this post can be found at images from… under the portraits gallery.

Good photography can be found just about anywhere if you know what to look for. Quite a number of my best images have come from my own back garden (in the days when I had one), other peoples gardens and public gardens. Places like Kew Gardens and RHS Wisley are a veritable treasure trove of colours, textures and shapes.

Spring is an excellent time to get some fantastic shots of the garden (or local park if, like me, you don’t have your own garden). Grab your camera, a lens with a nice big aperture (long lenses and macro lenses help no end here) and let rip for a couple of hours. That’s precisely what I did when I took my daisy picture, I’d just got my shiny new 70-200mm f2.8 IS L lens and wanted to try it out. I went straight out into the garden to take a couple of hundred shots. Back then I was still very much learning but the afternoons shooting taught me a lot about photographing flowers. 3 years later I’m still taking random shots of giant daisy’s, albeit yellow this time.

One of the biggest problems I find with nature is that it’s messy. If you look at the daisy picture you’ll notice petals out of place, dead flowers and other gumph that, for me, detracts from the image. You’ll often see me tidying up round flowers clearing away damaged petals, dead flowers and the like just to neaten the shot up. this isn’t always possible, as was the case with the roses at Kew. Here I gave up on the flowers all together and concentrated on the branches instead. The resulting image was far better than any of the flower shots I could have got. Also choosing which flower to shoot can make a massive difference. The pink flower shot is one of about 20 from all different angles.

A good macro lens can open up a whole new world of photography allowing for real closeups of insects and tight depth of field. Where there are flowers there are invariably bees. I’m still chasing the perfect ‘in flight’ image, but in the mean time my image of a bee on a lavender bush will have to do. By throwing the background out completely I’ve managed to get a lovely purple colour and hide the fact that this was actually a lavender bush in a pot on a balcony. Similarly with the wheat photo the macro allows a good closeup of a stalk of wheat while throwing the background out to a lovely golden colour.

All images in this post can be found at images from… under the in the garden gallery.