Part One: Journey to Scotland

So I am in Isle of Arran, after planning this for months I am finally here! I haven't been able to post because I have been pretty busy with travelling and having no internet is a bother. I wanted to blog every evening about what I got up to previously that day but there is no internet connection where I am staying so it is hard to do this.
This video is just my journey, leaving Falmouth and going to London.  This was shot last Saturday so I still have a bit of catching up to do!

I want to get up to date as soon as possible, as today I sat in a hide about 10m away from a couple red squirrels feeding. So this will be edited when I have time and posted when I can access the internet.
Tomorrow, I am going to build a set with a couple broken trees so I will capture a natural looking shot rather than a squirrel at a feeder like it was today.

These videos aren't much but they give me motivation to edit my work which will be included as a short documentary piece. At a later date, I will be merging the gopro videos with my high quality squirrel footage to produce a documentary raising awareness of the red squirrel as my final major project.

To look at my previous shoots, scroll to the 'older post' button on the bottom right.

Contact:

markfoxphoto@hotmail.co.uk
www.facebook.com/markfoxphotography

Getting ready for Scotland

Hello all,

This is just a quick video of me packing my stuff up in preparation for Scotland. 

This was done on Friday and I completed half of my journey yesterday, stopping off in London.
Later on tonight I will be getting the megabus up to Scotland which will be a 8hour journey to Glasgow and then from Glasgow I will be take a further trip to the west coast, gettting a ferry and then getting pick up from the harbour to be taken to Brodick Castle in the Isle of Arran. I will arrive in at my accommodation at around midday tomorrow morning.

To look at my previous shoots, scroll to the 'older post' button on the bottom right.




Contact:
markfoxphoto@hotmail.co.uk
www.facebook.com/markfoxphotography

Progression of the Brown Rat

I have been photographing a brown rat the past couple of days. Rats, like squirrels, are a member of the Rodentia family. So to get a break from squirrels, I decided to photograph rats and then apply what I learn to the red squirrels when I photograph them next week. The grey squirrels I have been shooting are far too tame to transfer the techniques I learned to the red squirrels. So instead, I decided to change to a subject that is still common but not as tame. The brown rat seemed a perfect choice.

I used a Nikon d7000 as opposed to the d200 to reduce the grain in my shots as appeared in my photos in the last post. My other factor was that it was too dark under the tree so I also used a pocket maglite to lighten the subject.
In these shots I wanted to show the rat within its environment.

There are a couple rats in the area so in future, I would like to capture some interaction between them and show more behaviour. It is just a learning curve and hopefully I will get the shots I want with time.
This will most probably be the last shoot I do on the rats before leaving to go home. As from next week I will be photographing Red Squirrels in Scotland and then in Jersey so stay tuned if you want to see some cute sots of red squirrels!

To look at my previous shoots, scroll to the 'older post' button on the bottom right.

Contact:

markfoxphoto@hotmail.co.uk
www.facebook.com/markfoxphotography

Lundy Island - Grey Seals

After owning the goPro hd camera for a good six months, I thought I would show you some wildlife that the gopro has encountered. The first video that I have put together are the clips I took when I went to Lundy Island to swim with grey seals. It was my first time using the camera properly and i'm glad I could document it.

The dives consisted of two sessions, one in the morning, where I was about half a metre from one and the second was in the afternoon, where the seals came up and nibbled out fins. We were very unlucky with the visibility that day so the underwater footage could have been better..
Another problem I encountered was that the battery doesn't last very long in cold water so it died pretty quickly! Now I have an extra battery bacpac for double power so next time I won't miss anything! 

To look at my previous shoots, scroll to the 'older post' button on the bottom right.

Contact:

markfoxphoto@hotmail.co.uk
www.facebook.com/markfoxphotography

Brown Rat second Attempt

This morning I went on another shoot down at Swanpool, to photograph the Brown rat again.

The light was incredible this morning, but unfortunately doesn't show in these photos because the area is too shaded. The point of this shoot was to experiment with wide angle (fish eye). The day before I found regular routes that they take, I chose one of them and baited it with bread. My plan was that the rat would take this regular path, stumble across some food and then stop to eat it.

First of all, I took some, what I call 'safety shots' with the Nikon 70-200mm lens, to ensure I manage to capture something on the shoot. This is only my second attempt so I going to have a lot of trial and error.

Once the rat was familiar with the stock of bread I kept laying down, I placed a camera with a fish eye down. I attached my remote control, but I wasn't planning on using it just yet. I wanted to make sure that the rat wasn't spooked out by this new random object.  It took no time for it to adjust, so I started firing the shutter. 

The camera body I was using was the Nikon d200 and because it was so dark I had to increase the ISO but the d200 is renowned for a crap ISO so these pictures are really grainy. In future I am going to use a d7000 to reduce the grainy effect.
I am going to sort out a lighting system too so I can bring out the environment.

To look at my previous shoots, scroll to the 'older post' button on the bottom right.

Contact:

markfoxphoto@hotmail.co.uk
www.facebook.com/markfoxphotography

Change of Species

As most of you are aware I am doing a major project on Squirrels. I will be producing a short documentary about my search to find Britain's rare red squirrel. I will highlight the key concerns contributing to their survival and amount of extensive work that it takes to maintain their existence in the UK.

Because I have been focusing so much on this project, I decided to photograph something else. I took a trip down to my local wildlife spot, Swanpool and photographed the Brown Rat.

The majority of people treat these animals as vermin, which is understandable, but observing their behaviour this morning made me change my opinion of them and I thought they were actually kind of cute.
This was my first shoot with the rats so I was mainly studying their behaviour and identifying the regular tracks that they take. Now I know this, I am thinking about using a wide angle to photograph them.

Here are some shots I took this morning of the Brown Rat:

To look at my previous shoots, scroll to the 'older post' button on the bottom right.



Contact:
markfoxphoto@hotmail.co.uk
www.facebook.com/markfoxphotography