Posts tagged wildlife
Namibia by Bob Johnson ARPS

On Tuesday evening Bob Johnson presented his Namibia talk at our regular venue, the City Academy. This was Bob's third visit to NDPS but his first in person. His two previous presentations, Kingdom of The Ice Bear and Carnivores of the Serengeti, were delivered via Zoom during the pandemic.

 How nice to have him in the room for the first time. He briefly mentioned that he had by now spent a year in Africa photographing wildlife, the landscape, and the people. He said that he now had a small fleet of drones as well as his usual cameras and lenses.

 This was a travelogue of the visit made my Bob and his wife Peggy. A journey through the driest country in sub-Sahara Africa, Namibia. The country is named after the Namib desert, and that name, Namib, means vast place. Bob hired a land cruiser and driver for his trip and travelled from South to North in the country visiting not only the inland sand dunes and bush but also the coast, the Atlantic Ocean. And all the time he photographed amazing wildlife - enormous, fearless pelicans, colonies of seals (you could smell them before you saw them), Cape Sparrows, Egrets and Flamingos! But Bob also managed to capture lots of elephant, giraffes and took photos of both black and white Rhinos.

 Not content with the wildlife he recorded the sand filled old diamond mines, the sand dunes in the light of dawn and some spectacular shots of people walking on the rims of the dunes and some lovely shots of local people from the villages with their lack of concern at not wearing much clothing and their rain dance.

  A wonderfully entertaining evening of wildlife, nature, and community photography. We are once again indebted to Bob Johnson for a wonderful evening.

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The Carnivores of the Serengeti by Bob Johnson ARPS

In February, after his first visit to NDPS, he 'Exit(ed) pursued by a bear'! An ice bear, at the end of his Svalbard presentation!

This evening his presentation suited the arrival of English summer! We were transported to much warmer climes, the Serengeti, Tanzania, home of the great migration.

Bob began by explaining his love affair with Africa which followed a family trip where he became hooked on wildlife photography and has resulted in fourteen subsequent visits!

On to the Serengeti (Serengeti means 'endless plains') and is a huge national park in Tanzania. Bob changed his cameras from Canon to Olympus before the trip so there was something of a learning curve, but he began with pictures of a cheetah, up in a tree, with a dead sheep she had caught.

Next was a cheetah and her cub on a hunting trip in woodland! Very, very unusual situation to see a cub helping and in woodland. Then they caught an impala, another rarity! This sequence of photos showed all the action, including the kill, and Bob suggested that even though this was fast moving it is still worthwhile changing settings during the action, to improve the shutter speed and reduce noise - something of a conundrum.

Then, with a non-photography group, they saw a pack of 16 wild dogs, again, never seen before. Then a cheetah, nicknamed 'Patch' by the visitors with her four cubs only three months old and very vulnerable to attack. This means that mum was very busy indeed looking for food. All the animals looked in good condition and, indeed all four reached adulthood. A tribute to Patch because this was her first family and such success has rarely been achieved.

Bob began the second half with some astonishing statistics about lions - the numbers have dropped from 200 thousand to 20 thousand, of which 4 thousand are males and of these only ten percent will mate in their lifetime!

Bob then showed four lions killing a young hippo and a lioness killing a young giraffe for her sister and their eight cubs! Those cubs hadn't eaten for two weeks and they were very hungry.

Bob rounded off his presentation by recommending 'Remembering Wildlife' to us, a series of books published to help in the conservation of species.

Another exciting presentation from Bob Johnson with not too much blood but some good examples of the law of self-preservation and the law of the bush.

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Special Presentation by Bob Johnson ARPS

The Kingdom of The Ice Bear
Tuesday 22nd February.

This evening members of Norwich & District Photographic Society were all entertained by an inspirational story of arctic adventure illustrated by some outstanding photographs. The presentation by Bob Johnson was a description of his four week trip inside the Arctic Circle in the Svalbard area in the former seal hunter ship called Havsel and captained by Bjorn Kvernmo to the Kingdom of the Ice Bear!

Bob began by telling how he started photography, fell in love with Africa (he has been there 14 times now!), talked of his farmers photos in Essex but quickly moved on to this evening's presentation in the far north of Norway. The boat he was on had previously been used for seal hunting, capable of hunting and killing 1,500 seals on a trip, but today Captain Bjorn is now passionate about wildlife.

At the start of the trip there was a lack of bears and they sailed along the edge of the ice where Bob had some amazing views from the crow's nest. Suddenly they spotted a dead whale and 21 bears. The view was amazing, 21 polar bears all together in one spot was a record even for the captain, but the horrible, rancid smell . . . Later a mother bear and two cubs were spotted, and the photographers watched them for a couple of days, just long enough for the bears to get used to the ship and come closer and closer allowing some breath taking photography.

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The World of a Wildlife Photographer - David Boag

Yesterday's presentation to the Society was by this professional wildlife photographer, billed as enthusiastic, encouraging and entertaining he certainly lived up to his billing. There was no 'Muck and Mystery' from this self-effacing speaker!

This was (mostly) a journey through his work for book illustration interlaced with anecdotes not just about the photos, which were wonderful, but also about the human interactions in his professional journey through life to pay the mortgage and feed and clothe the family.

There were many things to take away from this presentation. Firstly he explained that because the end use of the photographs was a book then he always worked on specific projects and he always had a theme. But he said that he was not special in any way and anyone could take these photographs providing they wanted to.

David's view of the weather raised a smile in the audience as he gave his view that there were not four seasons. There were 365 seasons! Every day is different and you can take pictures in any weather conditions and not produce boring pictures but ones that have a monetary and artistic worth.

He said that it is vital to know your equipment and how it works, never forgetting that it is the photographer who takes the picture not the camera. A 'poor' photographer will still be 'poor' even with expensive top of the range equipment. Having mastered the camera remember the theme and concentrate on timing the shot.

A very entertaining and informative evening by a consummate professional. Our thanks to David .

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Special Presentation by award winning photographer Tracey Lund

'Stunning images, Tracey'

This heading comes nowhere near summing up last night's Special Presentation to Norwich & District Photographic Society. Tracy was chosen because of her undoubted expertise in this particular field, as evidence by her long string of awards, to make the final Special Presentation of 2020.

'Wonderful, thank you'

Tracy took us through a long and breath-taking journey around the world photographing what was obviously the love and passion of her life - wildlife. We visited Japan (Snow Macaques, Red Crown Cranes, Whooper Swans, Eagles), Finland (Black Grouse, Goshawks, Waxwings, Golden Eagles, Wolverines), Iceland (Blue Nosed Arctic Foxes), The Camargue (Horses), Holland (Gorillas), Spain (The Lynx and Bears), Kent (Lions and Leopards, Yorkshire (Polar Bears), Yellowstone USA (Grizzly Bears, Birds of Prey) and other places in the United Kingdom (puffins, Seals, Owls, Hares, Red Squirrels). Not just a list of far flung places but a very long and varied list of species.

'I loved your beautiful images.'

Tracy also shared some of her techniques with us. She always uses Manual mode. She make eye contact with her subject and takes the images at their eye level - a way of working that shone through all her images. Always have your camera set and ready for the 'grab shot'.

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Guy Edwardes delivers outstanding talk on Landscape and Wildlife photography

WOW – does not come close to adequately describing the inspirational talk that Guy Edwardes delivered on Tuesday night (9th June) to the members of Norwich and District Photographic Society.

In a highly-illustrated two-hour remote talk consisting of two parts Guy presented his outstanding landscape and wildlifee photographs from around the world and generously explained how many of the images were planned and also shared details of the photographic kit and techniques he often uses to capture his stunning images.

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Summer Programme of events currently being planned

We are currently in the final stages of planning a full range of activities that will take place every Tuesday from the end of the current season right up until Tuesday 1st September when the next season will open with a Special Presentation from an acclaimed female photographer of exceptional talent – more details shortly...!.

The first of these summer events will take place on Tuesday 23rd June when we shall make a field trip to Holkham Hall out on the North Norfolk Coast. The visit will be in two parts as explained below.

This is a theme that we shall repeat throughout the summer when there will be an earlier start for those who are normally available during the day and want to take full advantage of all a particular location has to offer before a short break to get something to eat before joining up with those members who are only available during the evening.

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Tesni Ward wows Norwich & District Photographic Society with an inspirational talk...

On Tuesday night (7th January) at our meeting in the Methodist Hall Norwich & District Photographic Society hosted the award-winning Wildlife and Nature Photographer Tesni Ward who delivered an inspiring highly illustrated photographic talk titled ‘Photography in the Peak District’.

Tesni explained that towards the end of 2014 she was dedicating more time and energy into photography and this steadily evolved until March of 2016 when she decided to take the step to becoming a full time photographer. Working as a wildlife photographer she said is challenging but extremely rewarding and that she aspires to use her images and stories to promote conservation and to educate the public on the struggles wildlife faces and what we can do as individuals to help protect the many species currently under threat from human activity.

It quickly, became apparent why Tesni is becoming so successful.  Her images are full of character and emotion, and it is clear that she has a down-to-earth sympathetic approach to her work – if only more of us could emulate some of that magic...!

More importantly Tesni knows her wildlife, where to find it, and most of all how to use a camera to capture it. 

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Chairman's monthly blog...

A good month for the Society during October in terms of quality of the Tuesday night presentations, Good attendance and a group of new members signing up.

Anticipating a larger than normal turnout for our ’Special Presentations this month it was decided by the committee to use the upstairs hall at Chapelfield. This has proven to be a correct decision and we will continue to use the larger space when neccessary.

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Great start to this season’s Photographer of the Year competition.

This season’s Photographer of the Year compeition got off to a great start last night with the room at Chapel Field jam-packed to see our judge for the evening Rex Makemson score a record number of entries.

In order to give new members of the Society the best opportunity to score well this was an open themed round where entraints were asked to ‘let us see your best images’. So it turned out with new member Gary Hagg scoring two maximum scores with his his images - Flower Fairy and Golden Cross.

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