The photograph of the month for April 2024 comes from my recent winter expedition to the east coast of Greenland (full trip report coming soon). It shows an Arctic Snow Hare in full gallop during a howling -40º C blizzard behind the small Inuit village of Ittortoqitormit on the East coast of Greenland. I photographed it with the Canon EOS R3, and the Canon RF 600mm f4L IS lens. The real challenge of this photograph (other than avoiding frostbite) was keeping the fast-moving subject in the frame as it galloped at high speed through the snow. The blizzard wind was incredibly strong, making hand-holding the lens impossible. To counter this, I lay down in the snow, using the snow cover as a makeshift tripod, cranked up the ISO to 1600 and opened up the f-stop to f6.3. This close to the subject meant the depth of field would be extremely narrow, making focus critical. Anything less than perfect focus on the eye would result in zero keepers. Incredibly, the Canon EOS R3 could track and nail focus on the eye of the fast-moving Snow Hare despite the howling wind and flying snow. Focus Case 2 was used to ignore the whirling snow around the hare. The blue background is not the sky (which could not be seen in the white-out conditions), but the wooden wall of one of the small painted houses in the village. This is an excellent example of how depth of field control can be carefully employed to control backgrounds and enhance a photograph. Without the blue background, there would be almost no contrast between the Snow Hare and the background.
Due to a medical cancellation, a single place has just become available for my May 2024 Namibia Wildlife and Aerial Masterclass workshop. The 2024 masterclass has been designed from the ground up to take in not only the best of Namibia but also luxurious accommodations in the very best private game reserves. We will also have multiple private doors-off helicopter charter flights to photograph the expansive dune sea around the Sossusvlei and Dead Vlei areas. If you have ever wanted to photograph the incredible dune sea of the Namib desert and take in the very best of wildlife this amazing country has to offer, then this is the workshop for you. The trip will run from May 10th until May 22nd and includes all transfers, food and accommodation, as well as all in-field instruction. You can download a complete trip itinerary online here: Trip Itinerary. Drop me an email for further information or to secure the place, first in best dressed.
In January of 2024, I ran a small group workshop in the Ontario region of Canada to photograph the magical Snowy Owl. Snowy Owls are a highly sought-after species by nature photographers and are regularly sighted in this region of Canada in winter. Previous workshops in this area have proved exceptionally fruitful, with many owl encounters and photographs resulting from our time in the field. It has been common, in past years, to walk outside our accommodation after breakfast to find an Owl perched on a nearby fence or telephone pole. This year, things were quite different.
Due to a likely combination of avian flu, poor breeding in 2023 (likely due to lack of prey), and an erratic, overly warm climate that included a late winter, there have been virtually no Snowy Owls this season in the Ontario and Quebec regions. In a typical year, Snowy Owls are regularly seen in multiple numbers, and it is possible to have the choice of birds to photograph. Thanks to the above factors, any sighting of a Snowy Owl was a real bonus this year.
Mercifully, thanks to our many scouts in the field, we located a young female Snowy Owl on our second day and photographed this owl over three separate days. The owl had taken up residence in a field just outside of central Ottawa, which meant an early morning start and a commute of around an hour each way. A journey that proved worthwhile.
During this workshop, we photographed four different owl species, including the Snowy Owl, the Barred Owl, the Sawwit Owl and the adorable Screech Owl. The Screech Owl was a real thrill for me, as not only was it the first time I had seen this owl in the wild, but the little guy had perched right on the edge of his hole in a dead tree and was in the ideal position to photograph. Close to eye level and with a clean background, it was possible to maneuver around the tree for various compositions. The Screech Owl has incredible camouflage, making it extremely difficult to find in the wild, but also highly photogenic.
Although Snowy Owls were challenging to locate this year as a result of mitigating factors, we still managed to find and photograph an owl, as well as three other species, during the week-long workshop. We wrapped up the last rainy day of our workshop with an image processing and image critique session. As I am currently travelling, I have not as yet had time to process any additional photographs from the workshop, but will update this post at a later date with more images when I can.
I will run this workshop again in January of 2026 for a small group of photographers. If you have ever wanted to photograph Snowy Owls in winter, this workshop is for you. Places are extremely limited, and once spoken for, that’s it. Please just drop me an email for further information or to register your place.
In January of 2024, I ran an expedition to Mongolia’s far eastern Steppe region to find and photograph the stunningly beautiful, rare and enigmatic Pallas Cat. This was my third expedition to this remote region of Mongolia, and it proved no less productive than the previous two (Read the 2023 Trip Report).
The camp where we based ourselves to find and photograph Pallas Cats resides in Mongolia’s far eastern Steppe region, nearly 700 kilometres from the capital, Ulaanbaatar. We used three large 4-wheel drive vehicles to reach the camp and to search for cats in the field. In good conditions, the drive is around 8-10 hours. The drive took us nearly twelve hours this year due to heavy snowfall. This year, I am including more behind-the-scenes photographs in the trip report to help paint a better picture of the overall experience of visiting and living in this remote region.
Widely unknown by many, the Pallas cat is a small wildcat roughly the size of a domestic house cat that is found in Mongolia, parts of China, Russia and Tibet. Typically, it is an ambush hunter living off small rodents such as vols. Unlike most cats that have an elliptical pupil, what makes the Pallas cat unique and special is its round pupils. Affectionately known as the ‘Grumpy cat’ by many, Pallas cats always tend to have an annoyed look that is undoubtedly part of their charm and appeal.
For 2024, Mongolia’s far east Steppe region has been buried under heavy snow, making for absolutely ideal conditions for finding and photographing Pallas Cat. Most years, the snow coverage is sparse in this region, and it is not uncommon for there to be little or even no snow. The lack of snow makes for easy driving conditions but can be problematic for photography. This year, the reverse proved true, with outstanding conditions for winter photography and adverse driving conditions that slowed us down on more than one occasion.
Over the week-long expedition, we photographed approximately six different Pallas Cats and sighted another half dozen or so as we traversed the landscape in our 4-wheel drives. Pallas cats can be challenging to distinguish, so it is impossible to be sure of the exact number of individual cats we sighted. Our local guides again showed their eagle-vision superpower of spotting the small cats at huge distances across the landscape. Finding Pallas cats in the vast, seemingly endless Steppe region would be impossible without their skilled eyes.
During this expedition, we also had a fantastic photographic encounter with a Corsak fox. This encounter was the first time in my visits that I could get close enough to Corsak Fox to photograph them. Completely relaxed, the fox allowed us to get close enough to fill the frame with a 600mm lens and a 1.4 teleconverter. Typically, the foxes in this region of Mongolia run away before you can get out of the car. This particular fox was found quite close to a nearby small village, and I suspect it was somewhat habituated to human activity. Nevertheless, it proved an incredible encounter.
During the trip, we also saw many raptors, including the Upland Buzzard (a fantastic black morph was also sighted), Golden Eagle, Saker Falcon, and the Cinereous Vulture.
Our final encounter for the expedition provided terrific images of a Pallas cat in backlight just as the winter sun was setting. This encounter was to be our last shoot for the trip, with the following day being lost to a snowstorm with poor visibility and high winds. In these sorts of conditions, Pallas cats prefer to hunker down in the rocks or fox and marmot burrows to seek shelter from the winds.
The following day, Our return to Ulaanbaatar took far longer than usual due to the heavy snow, which slowed us down considerably. The first part of the return journey (a distance of approximately 70 kilometres) is all off-road driving through the steppe region, and thanks to heavy snow, high winds and a snowstorm, this drive took us five and a half hours instead of the usual hour and a half. We left camp at 6am, anticipating the drive would be slow in the prevailing conditions. Indeed, the deep snow drifts saw us bogged down or stuck eleven times in our 4-wheel drives. Even once we made the main road, we were frequently slowed down by road closures and snow and ice conditions. Thanks to the tireless work of our local guides and drivers, we got moving each time and finally made it safely back to the capital an epic sixteen hours after our departure. Although this proved a very long travel day, the resulting photographs from the expedition were superb and totally worth the long hours in the car to and from the capital.
I will return to Mongolia this July for an expedition to photograph Pallas Cat and Pallas Cat kittens in the warm summer sun. This workshop is now sold out, but I am taking bookings for January and winter 2025. If you are interested in photographing this beautiful wildcat in winter snow conditions, drop me an email for more information or to register your interest.
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