Lincolnshire: Hatfield Moors
10:14
I am very lucky to live in a beautiful area where I can cross a road and be in the British countryside surrounded by fields and rolling hills. I have walked these country paths so many times I am now searching for new places to walk that are secluded and beautiful to get my fill. 10 minutes down the road is a place called 'Hatfield moors’ with several different walking paths to try with different terrain and different surroundings. There are a several different sized ponds/lakes, woodland areas and of course the moors at the far end. Beautiful, quiet and full of animals; when walking here previously I have seen an actual deer go bounding across our path sadly I did not have my camera at this time. Not far into one of the path ways there has been a hide built a few years ago for bird watchers and photographers alike. Never been in a proper hide I got super excited when I found it and had to keep my giddiness at bay when we got inside. Alone we sat in silence waiting for the birds, a table with a log had been set up and some bird feeders, as well as been next to a lake so we got ducks as well as Kingfishers at the right time of year. I felt so bad for tom just sat on his phone while I was snapping photos of the blue tits landing only a few feet in front of us... so I did the good person thing and let him have a go with my precious camera. I put it on AUTO for him and let snap away - he fell in love. When I quietly asked for it back I got a huff and puff and he pulled out his phone which has an amazing camera (I’m pretty sure it’s more megapixels than my bridge camera) he took some really nice photos in the end. As quietly as I could I tried explaining about the rule of thirds and turns out he knew a little (he studied it little at GCSE). We spent the new few hours in the hide and walking around the moors taking it in turns using my bridge camera and the other person using Toms phone. It was a beautiful day too, little overcast but that just put some personality on the skyscapes behind the lakes we were photographing. This place has become a regular visit over the last few months and I highly recommend for a lovely walk if for nothing else.
So far I’ve not photographed any true wildlife so this was a new experience for me, trying to be as patient as possible to spot any patterns in behavior and trying to capture the personality of each creature was very hard as they are such energetic birds so I often got slightly blurry images where they moved just as I snapped the shutter. Thankfully this works to be favor in this image. (These are 2 blue tits in case anyone is interested)
We were lucky enough to be visited by two little Robin’s too, these two acted as if they had spent a lot of time together as constantly flew around together. On the placed bark they were almost playing ‘Hide and seek’ while one wiggled into/behind the bark the other one hopped around searching for him/her.
This little guy was fairly shy very rarely hanging around the feeders or the bark, I was blessed to be able to capture him before he flew off not much of a bird watcher myself I did have to google what breed this beauty was. It’s a shame that the sun had gone in for this image, I feel it's a little dull with the colors yet I feel like the focus is on the bird rather than anything so I don’t mind. This same image would really disappoint if it was a Parrot for example.
So happy with the way this image came out, small tweaks in Photoshop (which I hate to do) mainly on bringing the colours out a little better to bring the vibrant way it looked first hand. Traditional lay out with the rule of thirds but I fell in love with this image as I had been aiming for it for a good 30 minutes having to change position and composition – never mind waiting for a bird to land!
This image of one of the ponds was one of at least 20 each at different levels of height and angles onto the lake, I wanted to capture all the little details of the lake and the cloud layout. This image was the best balance and really captured the reflections as well as the silhouette of the natural environment.
A fair few of the lakes/ponds are natural and don’t have clear viewing points over looking them like my last image. Tom and I spotted this beautiful creature through a load of trees and bushes and we had to go on a little bit of a climb to get clearer images. Sadly there still branches in the way due to the swan been so far away (I did need to zoom in to capture this image) Thankfully the aperture worked amazing and captured the swan without too much interference. I actually quite like the blur of the branches and I think it gives the whole image some personality.
Stumbling across random trials can be the best thing to happen. I had to capture this image as I feel like it looks straight out a fantasy land (we straight away said Skyrim) Not to mention the natural layout of the trees makes it feel like some sort of doorway. Not an image everyone would enjoy but defiantly for the creative minds I think.
Thanks for reading, hoped you enjoyed the new style of layout and writing!
I’d love any feedback!
kerriss brown xo
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