Hello Everyone.
Nature blog here again, I have decided that both August and September are so very similar in the world of Nature, that this final blog will involve the last 2 months of the year long Nature Blog. I believe that August and September are the two months where Mother Nature puts her affairs in order ready for the Winter ahead.
August will be the finishing of most flowers and the last production of valuable new life for next year in seeds. The fruit and nuts are finally fulfilling their last growth ready to be stored as valuable foods for winter. This only continues in September with the seeds and fruits leaving the plants and being gathered. These months are the great finale of the amazing Nature year. There are no more birds nesting, however there are still great images to be collected. Bugs and Butterflies and also Moths are still going about their business but main thoughts are on collection of Winter food stocks or fattening their selves up.
About this time we can have some cold evenings and we do see a lot of spiders and their webs which make great photography.
Nature images are all about adult or well sized juvenile versions now and in these months it is fun time for juveniles and they can look comical as they are in a change of feather or hair mode.
Kingfishers are always great to photograph all year around. The Heron on the lakes will still be fishing along with other water birds.
August should still provide a whole host of insect, bird and mammal images but things will be changing and there will be a urgency as Winter starts to approach. September signs may be early this year because the heat and the trees have lost many leaves already. This may, or may not have an impact on Autumn colours later on, so worth watching out for. It just may feel like September half way through August.
A lot of hides are popping up with interesting animals to photograph and there are many workshops to investigate. Nature images in competitions are becoming so much harder to impress as the high quality rate of Nature images continues to get rise. All we can do is watch nature and learn and try very hard to capture images that will always wow and make them as creative and special as you can. Your aim, of course, is for perfectly photographed images as you try to stay up with the ever-changing fast world of Nature photography.
There is no question Nature photography is in high demand. Everyone wishes for the perfect image and the only way to achieve it is to keep on trying. Look at images other photographers take and the kind of images that you take. Do you like anything that they do? Can you put your own touch to the sort of image that the judges have seen many times already? An image that comes to mind is of a Demoiselle. How can you make yours win over the others? All these things matter and the skill to take Nature winning images is not getting any easier. For ourselves, we think wow, I have a very special Nature image of a very rare hardly seen insect or mammal. We are proud of it and we believe it will do such special things and win over everything else because it is so rare. But 9 times out of 10 it doesn’t. Nature images are sadly not judged on rarity of subject. Nature images are images that provide a story, the whole image tells the person looking all about the subject of the image. Hopefully, include some movement albeit feeding, calling etc. and well photographed. They do say you can get a pass with a Nature image on its storyline but I do not see many poor Nature images get through. Aim for a natural colour Nature image, not colour enhanced. Do remember, many top class Nature images do not get accepted due to the quota of the pass rate having already been reached and the large quantity of high quality images to start with. It’s very, very tough out there and it’s down to the judge’s choice and who can ever know what that is.
Thank you everyone. I hope the past year’s Nature blogs have encouraged you all to have a go.
Good luck.
Jenny Webster
