2020: Year In Review
It is fair to say that 2020 has been, by all accounts, a terrible year. As we welcomed in the New Year at midnight on 1st January 2019, there was little inkling of what was to come over the following 12 months. With the increasing news coverage around the outbreak and then the spread of Covid-19 from Wuhan in China, by the beginning of February I started to become concerned about how things were going to develop. When the holiday my wife and I had planned to celebrate one of her milestone birthdays was cancelled in March due to Venice being closed to tourists, the writing was on the wall. The first lockdown in England came into effect on 23rd March restricting travel, socialisation with friends and family and work. Whilst this first lockdown was released after several months, a second lockdown followed in the autumn together with more restrictions. As I write this blog, just before the end of 2020, a new strain of Covid-19 is threatening to overwhelm our National Health Service.
As a self-employed photographer, the lockdown and restrictions adversely impacted my ability to work. My wife’s office closed a week before the first lockdown and she set her new remote office up on our kitchen table, where she still is! With my office upstairs in a small box room and my wife downstairs, our two rather spoilt cats were in kitty heaven, receiving more attention than they normally do together with far more treats than when I had previously been the only human at home. Fortunately, a super fast fibre broadband had been installed to our home before the first lockdown, this connection allowed us both to work from home at the same time, with my wife spending many hours each day on Zoom calls.
The Covid-19 pandemic has had far reaching and terrible effects for many families, with many people sadly losing loved ones. To make matters worse, we have also had to endure the ongoing post-Brexit trade negotiations saga. For almost a year life in England has been dominated by accounts of the pandemic and the Brexit negotiations. There have been rays of hope during these trying times, seeing how people have rallied round has been heartening. A new national hero arose in the form of Captain Sir Tom Moore whose remarkable efforts brought much needed hope to us all. As 2020 comes to an end, despite the rise of the new strain of Covid-19, whilst we are still not out of the woods there is now hope that things will improve in the months ahead. Two Covid-19 vaccines have now been approved and licensed for use in the United Kingdom, firstly the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine on 2nd December 2020 and secondly the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on 30th December 2020. The vaccinations of key workers and the most vulnerable in our communities has already started and more widespread vaccination will start in the New Year. Finally, at the eleventh hour, the United Kingdom’s and European Union’s negotiators finally reached agreement on our ongoing trade relations post-Brexit.
Despite the trying times over the past 12 months, I did manage to get out and work between the lockdowns and I would like to share some of my experiences. Hopefully, the accounts and images will bring a little light in these difficult times.
If you click on any image in this blog it will open in a full screen lightbox.
Urban Wildlife
At the start of the year, I continued working in January and February on an ongoing project documenting how nature has started to take over a large former industrial site not far from my home. This project has a personal connection for me as my father worked at the site for several years. Early in the year, I was contacted by a fellow photographer I had met and chatted to one evening who invited me to join a group of “friends” who are working to preserve the site for the future. Becoming a “friend” myself, I have been afforded special access to the site and it has been a pleasure to spend time getting to know all of the other “friends” whilst continuing to work around the ongoing restrictions. I have to thank Ali for inviting me and Nigel, Dan and the rest of the friends for welcoming me into their group.
As the project is still ongoing, I am not able to reveal too much about it at this time but I will share one image of one of the little owls that have taken up residence in one of the old buildings on the site.
Nuthatch Nest
At the end of March, after the first lockdown had come into force, I found a nuthatch nest in an oak tree in the small wood behind my garage. With travel restricted, finding this nest gave me a great new subject to photograph at home. The nest was best photographed early in the morning when it was illuminated by the warm light of the sun or on a shady day when the contrast in the wood was reduced. Using my 600mm lens, with a 1.4 teleconverter attached, by setting up close to the rear wall of the garage, the nuthatches were unperturbed by my presence and I was able to photograph them bringing nesting material to the nest without having to set up a hide. As well as the nuthatches, a pair of blue tits were also interested in the hole in the oak tree as a potential location for their nest but the nuthatches soon pushed these smaller intruders away.
Garden Birds
During the lockdown, I continued to write my “Adventures Of A Wildlife Photographer” column for Practical Photography, in part drawing off my previous years’ work. Given the way magazines work, these columns were always written a few months before they were published. In light of the ongoing restrictions, my August 2020 column focused on photographing garden birds, a project that required no travel beyond the confines of my home and was aimed at providing ideas to other photographers who were in a similar restricted situation. I set up my canvas dome hide at the bottom of my garden and moved one of the bird feeders that were already set up in the garden in front of the hide. I then set up several different perches near the feeders. The perches were sited so as to be illuminated by the morning sun and far enough in front of a yew hedge so that it would be rendered as a plain, out of focus, green background behind the perches. I waited a few days to allow the birds to become accustomed to the new set up before spending several pleasant mornings in the hide with a mug of coffee photographing the local birds. The stars of the show were the charm of goldfinches who obligingly posed for me. Together with an image I had already made of a sparrow hawk that hunts around my garden, the images of the goldfinches were used to illustrate my August 2020 column. What I did not know when I submitted the article was that it was to be my penultimate article for Practical Photography. Sadly, Practical Photography was to be a victim of the commercial effect of the Covid-19 Pandemic and it ceased publication after the September 2020 magazine. Working with Practical Photographer’s group editor Ben Hawkins and all his team had been a real pleasure and privilege.
Naturetrek Photography Day Trips and Tour
Before the Covid-19 Pandemic had started, I had met with Andy Tucker and Kerrie Portoeus of Naturetrek to discuss the possibility of running photography tours for them. Naturetrek was established 35 years ago and they now operate the largest selection of professionally organised, expert-led wildlife holidays and tours in the world. Following a really positive meeting, I was really looking forward to this exciting new chapter in my photography but then the pandemic hit and everything went on hold. Out of the blue on 13th July 2020, I received an email from Kerrie asking if I would be interested in running photography day trips for Naturetrek as they had recently started launching a series of day trips around the United Kingdom that had already proved to be a big success with clients eager to get outside with nature. In a short period of time, we put together three different photography day trips on: (i) Seabirds at Bempton Cliffs on the Yorkshire Coast; (ii) the Red Deer Rut at Bradgate Deer Park in Leicestershire; and (iii) Autumn Landscapes of the Peak District. These day trips were followed by a week long photography tour which was put together with Alison Steel, also from Naturetrek, to photograph the autumn wildlife and landscapes of the Scottish Highlands. The day trips and tour were all fully booked and a great success. I personally derive a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction from teaching and coaching other photographers and helping them to improve their photography. Seeing the pleasure and enjoyment that the participants got from being outside with nature and from improving their photography was a real tonic to the pandemic. If I were to choose one highlight from these days it would be getting a group of photographers, including two who are over 70 years young, up into the Scottish hills to within 10 metres of a mountain hare, seeing their reaction after they came away with photographs of the hare was priceless.
Spotted Flycatcher
For several years, I have been working on a project documenting the wildlife and nature that can be found in churchyards and cemeteries. This project has its origins in the time I have spent photographing in the churchyard that is a short walk from my home and has now become a much wider body of work. One species that I have wanted to document in churchyards are spotted flycatchers. Historically, these flycatchers could be found nesting in most churchyards in England, making use of natural nest holes in trees or crevices in buildings. Sadly, the numbers of spotted flycatchers returning from Africa to breed in the United Kingdom during the summer has declined by 89% between 1967 and 2010. This massive fall has resulted in this bird species being listed as a red list species of conservation concern. At the end of June and beginning of July, I spent several weeks visiting the churchyards around my home in Staffordshire looking for spotted flycatchers but with no success.
Just when I was started to think I was going to fail, I had a tip from fellow photographer (and head of RSPB Images), Ben Andrew, about a churchyard location where they had recently been seen. Meeting up with Ben, we quickly spotted the flycatchers as they flew around the churchyard and the surrounding trees catching insects. After a really enjoyable day photographing with Ben, I returned the next day and located the nest which was in a drain gutter on the side of the porch to the door of the old rectory next to the church. It was amazing to see how close this pair of birds had lived to the couple living in the rectory and how tolerant they were of this human presence. Whilst I only manged to photograph spotted flycatchers over two days at this one location, I am hoping to spend more time watching and photographing these birds when they return to our shores next summer.
The image gallery below contains a collection of the images I made of these spotted flycatchers over the two days I spent watching and photographing them, if you click on an image it will open full screen and you can then scroll through the rest of the images.
Red Backed Shrike
At the start of Autumn, I became aware that there was a male red backed shrike in Sutton Park (which is on the outskirts of Birmingham and not far from my home) that was becoming a bit of a star attraction with the local and national birdwatchers and wildlife photographers. Together with a friend and fellow photographer, Phil Ward, I managed to get out and spend a couple of days in the Park watching and photographing this beautiful little bird. With the weather being warm and pleasant, given all that was going on at the time with the Covid-19 pandemic, being able to spend time with nature was a much needed tonic. This red backed shrike gave many people a much needed break from the grim realities of the the pandemic, helping and encouraging people to connect and reconnect with nature, proving yet again the importance of nature to our physical and mental health. In addition to the images below, have already posted a longer blog focusing specifically on this red backed shrike that can be found here.
New Website
When the second four week national lockdown for England began on the 5th November 2020, I decided to use the time to rebuild my website, updating it to the latest Squarespace 7.1 template. I had hoped that the rebuild would be finished before the end of the lockdown but, as with most good intentions, it took a little longer than I had anticipated and my new website finally went live on the 12th December 2020. Although the new website is similar in appearance to my old one, it is a completely new build with all of the images on it being reprocessed. Hopefully, my new website will give many years good service and will enable me to post frequent updates.
And Finally…
Looking back, whilst the past year has been very difficult, there have been moments when I have been able to get out and spend time with nature, watching and photographing wildlife. The benefits of this time with nature, to both my physical and mental health have seen me, as they have many others, through the past 12 months. If there is one positive to come out of 2020, it is that more people have realised the importance of our natural world and how we must all play our part to protect it. I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year and, hopefully, a much better 2021.