Why I'm not a nature photographer...

Two main reasons; 1. They're weird and 2. It would cost too much money. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh with the first reason as they are probably very nice people but they do seem to be very intense. I guess it's only birders that I've had contact with and I suppose they are very passionate about their hobby. I suppose to non-photographers I guess I'm probably a bit strange. OK, forget reason 1., maybe if I got really into this nature thing I would be just as strange and intense.

But reason 2. still holds true. Some of these guys had the long telephoto prime lenses with wide apertures and image stabilisation with a price tag of £5,000 to £10,000, and some of them had more than one of these lenses. The thing is you probably need these lenses to get the good quality images and I think that even if I had the money I couldn't contemplate spending so much on one lens. I think my whole kit bag including camera and 5 lenses tripod and all sorts of other accessories total around £3,000 and I think that is probably too much. Saying that the next lens I would like to buy weighs in at a shade over £1,000 and it's not a long telephoto at all.

Reading between the lines I guess it may be obvious that I've been to another nature reserve to take photos. This time the RSPB place at Old Moor near Barnsley. I think I'm reasonably happy to take long distance shots and crop them to the limit. I know the quality isn't there but I'm really a landscape photographer at heart so I'll have to let it go.

Not a vast amount of birds at the reserve but I had a bit of fun chopping out the interesting bits of the images and trying to identify what I'd caught. The images are on pages 3 & 4 in my Waterfowl Gallery.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

I set off quite early and parked a little way from the park because it doesn't officially open until 10am (and it costs £4 to park). There was a little walk through some woods which appear to be managed as there were lots of piles of timber next to the lane. After the woods I walked through a field and then down towards the old car park entrance to the park. There's a new entrance to the park with a big car park a visitors centre but as the park wasn't open I avoided it by using this way in.


I took quite a few photos of the sculptures and made my way down to the lake where I spotted this heron down on the lake side. There was second heron further on behind the trees but I couldn't get decent shot of it.


The second heron then rose into the air and I managed to fire off a few shots of it before it disappeared. None of them were particularly brilliant but this was about the best. Unfortunately there's a lot of high contrast with the trees and sky in the background which makes it hard to focus on the heron.


Back into the sculpture park I took another load of images of the sculptures including this one with Breton Hall in the background.


It's a while since I've been here so this set of strange animal/human sculptures were new to me. There's a load more pictures of the sculptures in my gallery so if you're interested, have a good look around.


The park was starting to get busy by now and I was fed up of the park wardens telling me that I should have Evey on a lead so I decided to leave. There was also an area where dogs weren't allowed at all so I'll have to come back without her some time.

On the way back to my car I walked back through West Bretton Village and then onto a path that took me back to the woods where I had started. I found a bit of a nature reserve that I didn't know was there even though I drive past here twice a day when I'm at work. quite a nice little diversion and there were a few butterflies about. I was just trying to get a bit closer to this one when Eveys' head suddenly appeared in the view finder.