Club Meeting, 10 yrs of Wildlife Photography - Tuesday 21st March 2023.

  

On Tuesday 21st March 2023, Morpeth Camera Club welcomed Mick Watson, an International Award-Winning Wildlife
Photographer, with his presentation entitled '10 years of Wildlife Photography'. Mick opened the evening by saying
his interest in taking pictures came about following a health issue which meant he could no longer ride motorcycles,
so he began to photograph them in high-speed races. In doing this he realised that the equipment and settings he
was using were similar to those of wildlife photography, so with his love of wide-open spaces, landscape and nature
it seemed a natural progression.

Photographing birds began with him using hides in his garden, progressing to arranged hides in Europe but he soon
realised that to succeed in good wildlife photography he needed to include the ‘X-factor’ and produce something different.
This led him to establish contacts in areas of interest and to travel on his own to capture the images he was after. It was
a learning curve to use available light to illuminate and achieve a background which didn’t detract from his subject. He
showed wonderful images taken in Bulgaria, Scotland, Greece and on photo tours in Poland’s and Finland’s national parks.

We saw an array of brilliant examples of Bee Eaters, Hoopoe birds, Griffin Vultures, Osprey, White Tailed Eagles, Scottish
Black Grouse, Finnish bears and Capercaillie, Camargue horses, Dalmatian Pelicans and Norwegian Musk Oxen, Red Grouse,
wild Peregrine Falcon and Arctic Terns and puffins on the Farne Islands. He described the equipment he used, such as an
eye track camera and how he found the use of animal trackers on his phone invaluable. He explained animal behaviour,
favourite habitats and typical signs to look out for and explained enthusiastically how some almost extinct species have
been introduced again into the wild.

He went on to describe his 8 year passion for seals and illustrated this with eye level images of pups just after birth, with
their mothers, playing on the foreshore, in sand storms and frolicking in waves. Illustrating the good and bad in wildlife,
he went on to show a self narrated Av (Audio Visual) piece, describing how he got his shots; in storms, crawling through
sand and wading through water. He said that one had to make the effort to get shots of life, and death. ‘To achieve what?’
he asked, and the av went on to show the footage of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year programme on television with
his image of a seal wrapped perilously in fishing net which won him the 2021 Wildlife Photographer of the Year award,
presented to him at the Natural History Museum.

With an obvious passion and with a seamless dialogue, Mick described his 10 year journey into wildlife photography which
was illustrated with an array of superb images; he generously shared his knowledge of the subject and entertained the
audience with many anecdotes of his travels. Co Chair Roseanne Robinson thanked Mick for his excellent presentation
after which refreshments were served.

Steph.