A lovely bright start to the Bank Holiday Monday meant that my hoped-for plans to travel to Richmond Park were worth doing – and after a speedy drive around the South Circular (if only the traffic was always like this….) I arrived before the park got really busy and wandered off in search of deer.
If I’ve worked it out, you should be able to click on the links above to get at larger versions in a slideshow.
I had a lovely morning (well, at least the bit before stopping off to do the shopping in the supermarket on the way back home) but it wasn’t the best time to go and see the deer. Compared to the Autumn when the stags are rutting, everything was terribly calm and relaxed today – seeing a stag eating was as close to any kind of action that I saw so I didn’t really get more than “record shots”.
The main issues from a photography point of view turned out to be about how to frame the shots so that the sun was in the right place but you couldn’t see all the luminous lycra-clad cyclists whizzing along the edge of the park in the distance! Different to the Autumn in that regard too – then, the main issue is about trying to avoid having other photographers in your frame; last time I went, I was quietly watching a deer and taking some photographs when a buffoon with a red jacket and white lens (you know the type….) walked right in front of me and plonked himself down with an enormous tripod and completely blocked my view. He got so close to the deer that it was spooked and wandered off – he’s lucky that’s all it did.
Still, today I had a nice 90 minutes in the fresh air, half-listened to one of our hapless party leaders being grilled on Radio 4, and learned once again that I can trust the E-3 to get exposure and white balance pretty much spot on a lot of the time. I did no chimping – and all of the photos above were made with the lowly 18-180 (dreaming about the 50-200….); not bad methinks….
….but not as good as my favourite photograph from the morning, which was taken with the E-1 which came along too. The 11-22 is currently welded to the front of that camera and it is a glorious combination:
This is a combination I need to use more (the 11-22 is quite a new addition for me) but so far I’ve loved the images that I’ve got from them. Also hoping the blue skies continue – much easier to persuade myself to cycle to work if I know I won’t be in danger of dissolving before I get there.
Jon
The Photographer's Block 