Pass the sunscreen!
Cows enjoying being beside the sea at White park Bay Northern Ireland
Cows enjoying being beside the sea at White park Bay Northern Ireland
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Jan, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
The shot was taken on the beach at White Park Bay in Northern Ireland. My fiancée and I had taken advantage of the great weather to take a trip to the beautiful north coast and as we walked down to the beach we noticed a large number of cows on the beach close to the waters edge. I had seen cows there once before but they had moved away, or should I say mooooooved away, before we reached the beach but this time they must have been too lazy!Time
It was around noon before we arrived at the beach and as it was a nice day there were a number of people already on the beach but I really wanted to isolate these particular cows and not have anyone else in the shot which would have spoilt it.Lighting
I was somewhat lucky in that it was midday around late June so there was little in the way of shadow as the sun was almost directly overhead so I just used the fill in flash on my camera to highlight the cow at the front.Equipment
It was just my old camera, a Nikon coolpix P510 with built in flash. I have since changed to a Canon 5D mark1 and would love to take the photograph again using it and my 17-40mm lens but my Nikon was a great highly versatile camera which I enjoyed using on my travels as it was so compact.Inspiration
It was a spur of the moment photograph really and I expected the cows to move away by the time we reached them as they were about half a mile away when first spotted them but clearly they were enjoying sunbathing by the water too much and the refreshing sea breeze. I wanted to get a close to them as I could so moved towards them very slowly so as not to startle them before lying down on my stomach as I wanted to be at the same level as them and not just looking down on them which wouldn't have had the same impact at all. My fiancée is actually a massive cow lover and she also lay down beside some in other photographs which I took on the day. I now call her the cow whisperer as she seemed to soothe them with her voice!Editing
I didn't really have to do very much the photograph to be honest. I have an app on my ipad called pixlr which is a simple kind of Photoshop tool to add effects and change colour and contrast etc but I just used a bit of the polariser to deepen the colour of the sky to create a greater contrast with the white sand and the black cows.In my camera bag
At that time I only had my Nikon P510 with me whereas now I have a Canon 5D mark1 with a variety of lenses, filters, flash gun and tripod etc as my interest in photography has grown massive even in just the last six months and I rarely leave home now without my camera as you just never know when a great photo opportunity will present itself. No worse feeling than seeing something and saying if only I had my camera with me!Feedback
Animals can be very unpredictable and you are never quite sure how they will react or behave so with animals such as horses and cows etc you still need to exercise a certain degree of caution as they can kick out etc so know your limits and get a feel for the animals comfort zone too. A good quality telephoto lens obviously helps in this respect so you can keep a safe distance whilst still getting the shot you want but basically get out into the countryside and nature no matter what time of year it is!
