Last weekend bangwallop ran a two day, wildlife photography course with Ross Hoddinott. Despite difficult weather conditions, the course was a great success and everyone achieved some fantastic and varied images.
The course began on saturday, starting with photographing around Haytor on Dartmoor. Thick mist in the morning meant that big views were unavailable, but instead there was plenty of opportunity for close-up shots of bluebells. After lunch we headed to a local farm to meet up with a falconer. This great location gave everyone a chance to get some incredible shots of a barn owl and kestral in what looked like completely natural settings.
We had time for one more location on Dartmoor, to get some atmospheric views, before rain forced us back to salcombe and into the pub for dinner.
We opted for an early night as the weather had still not improved, but looked better for the morning.
5 am at snapes point overlooking salcombe, and with a strong wind, the clouds soon cleared to reveal blue sky and warm sunshine. not quite classic sunrise conditions, but a great view over the estuary.
We returned to bangwallop for breakfast, and a chance to download images and have a look through the shots from saturday, before heading out again - this time across the water to East Portlemouth. the cliff path up through the woods behind Mill Bay gave Ross a good opportunity to demonstrate some of the techniques he uses for macro photography.
The course finished at the end of the afternoon with a slideshow and critique of everyones shots from the weekend. The results were excellent and everyone came away with a great mix of landscape, wildlife and macro images.
We have had some brilliant feedback from the course participents,
a selection of shots from the course can viewed in the gallery below
