Practise makes perfect

This behind the lens entry begins by taking a trip down memory lane, back to a sunny morning in August 2019.

I woke up early and wandered down to a beautiful stretch of my local river before work. The River Mole in Surrey—home to an array of wildlife including the invasive mink—rises in West Sussex near Horsham, and flows 80km northwest through Surrey, to the Thames at East Molesey, opposite Hampton Court Palace.

I have walked this stretch of river hundreds of times and almost every time I’ve visited I’ve been treated to the shrill whistle and flash of vibrant blue and orange as a kingfisher zoomed past me up the river. Up until that day however, I’d never managed to capture one on camera. I set up in a spot on the river bank and waited. Soon enough a kingfisher flew past me, dove down and caught a fish just upstream. It was fascinating to watch and much noisier than I was expecting when it plonked down into the water. I watched as it bashed, span and swallowed its catch and took off again back in my direction. Landing right in front of me I raised my camera with shaking hands and managed to take my first ever photo of a kingfisher! I was over the moon!

Now, I know what you’re thinking…that photo is far from my finest, but hear me out.

I repeatedly visited that same stretch of river in the weeks that followed but was never able to capture another image like this one. I had very little knowledge of photography and had never strayed far from the auto settings.

Fast forward a year and a half to early 2021, through a period of our lives that we’d like to forget; Covid. As lockdown rules began to ease and we were allowed to meet outdoors, I met a friend (@elliotrandfordswildlife) to try our luck with some Kingfishers.

We met along a stretch of the River Dour in Kent, where Ell had heard the kingfishers that resided there were very comfortable with passers by. I parked up, got my kit and we walked to a beautifully clear plunge pool at the base of a small waterfall that flowed under a brick archway. To the right of the archway was a huge cluster of bamboo, and to the other side was a busy footpath. As we neared, I could hear and see the kingfisher hunting from some overhanging bamboo branches.

During the pandemic I was very fortunate to continue working full-time. During the evenings and weekends my free time became crammed full of outdoor walks and exploring local places with my camera, as there was little else to do. That summer I also discovered several wildlife photography YouTube channels and found myself binge-watching them like a new Netflix series, absorbing as much information as I could. I learnt so much that year just from being out almost every day, researching about wildlife and their behaviours, habitats and characteristics, but also from watching others on their photography journeys.

As the autumn season faded away and winter quickly approached, my wildlife encounters naturally came to a bit of a halt. With my newly learnt knowledge, my second kingfisher experience was probably the first time I felt so much more confident about what I wanted to achieve and how I was going to go about it. I took time and thought about composition and lighting and had mentally visualised some creative shots I wanted to try.

Everybody has to start somewhere and it’s easy to get caught up in comparing yourself to others and not sharing something until it’s perfect. It’s often forgotten that behind that one amazing image, there were 100+ images that didn’t make the cut!