Photoventures

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Photoventures

Photographic Tour Specialists Photoventures is owned and operated by Roger Reynolds Hon. FRPS and organises specialist tours with the photographer in mind.

Photoventures is based in England taking small groups to varied locations around the world including the United States, Africa, South America, India and other world destinations. All of our tours are aimed at the keen photographer. We cater for all levels of experience from beginner to expert, whether you use 35mm or plate cameras. If you want to share a tour with a small and lively group of like-

minded people, with the opportunity to practice the art of photography in some of the most exciting places on the earth, then Photoventures has a tour for you.

17/09/2020

Come and join myself and Sigma Ambassador Lea Tippet at the virtual Photography Show on Monday 21st September as we show the images from Lea’s landscape forays in the West Country and Scotland and my extensive tests with the Sigma fp in California and Yellowstone in the winter. The presentation will be delivered via Zoom and will run from 1440hrs to 1520hrs. The Virtual Photography Show will run for two days Sunday and Monday 20th and 21st September. You will also be able to catch up the guys from Sigma Imaging UK at the virtual show, giving you an opportunity to hear from the experts on all the Sigma products and to discuss their exciting new initiative ‘Try before you buy’. This give you the unique opportunity to have a hands on test with your desired equipment before you commit to buy. If you do end up making a purchase then the modest hire charges will be offset against that purchase. Let’s hope you can join myself and Lea next Monday.

11/08/2020

One thing the lock down has given us is the time to catch up on some projects. One of these was an update to my website. I am lucky to have some extremely talented children and in this instance my son Paul has done the work in re-constructing the site giving it a modern upgrade. That is not to say I stood idly by as I had to prepare the new photographs for the eleven galleries that are currently on the site at launch with more on the way in the months to come. There are now over a 1,000 photographs on the site so please have a look and I hope you enjoy some of them.
The website address can be accessed via
www.rogerreynolds.co.uk
www.rogerreynoldsfrps.com
www.rogerreynolds.photography

18/06/2020

I thought that the flypast by The Red Arrows and The Patrouille Acrobatique de France over my house at 1656hrs was in recognitions of my adhering strictly to the lock down. Then someone told me the French President was in town.

31/05/2020

Day 31: The final day of my month of images and today I felt I would finish with an image that lets you know that you lot in life may not be as bad as you think right now. It certainly puts the hanging about we have been doing since lockdown in perspective. This ritual is associated with the Tamil Panguni Uthiran Festival. This may look excruciating but for the young men to be selected to do this is a great honour. They prepare for a considerable time before the event, ensuring they have the right mental state to endure the body piercing and perform in the festival. It is perhaps difficult for us in the west to understand this but to those involved it is a very spiritual event.

30/05/2020

Day 30: One of my favourite trips over the last years was to Alaska to see the grizzlies fishing for salmon. We travelled to Brook Lodge by float plane and spent a few amazing days photographing the bears that were all around the lodge. The best location was at the Brooks Falls where the bears had congregated ready for the salmon run. With almost 24 hours of daylight we were able to spend a lot of time watching the bears at the falls. My aim was to try and get the most iconic image of the bears at work. During our visit we had just two periods where the salmon began running and leaping up the small area of falls which were to create the perfect conditions for me to try and get the shot of the bears catching the salmon in mid-air. To get the shot you had to concentrate on just one particular bear and hope it was in the right place to get the fish. When the salmon began to leap in the vicinity of your chosen bear you just had to shoot and hope the elements would come together. I got lots of near misses but pleasingly on just two frames from the thousands I took it all came together. Funnily enough it was the same bear on both occasions but on one I was shooting at 250mm and had the whole bear in the frame and on the image here with a 500mm. Although delighted to get this image, what I really take from that visit was how much I learned about the interaction of the bears who frequented the area and how each had its own unique characteristics and fishing method.

29/05/2020

Day 29: Todays photograph was taken on the southern end of Lago Grey in Torres del Paine, Patagonia. This is a very remote area and apart from the small hotel there is just wilderness. It is a place I have visited before and is one of the pretty spectacular parts of Chile. While we were staying there we had a bit of down time to explore the area and I happened upon a Southern House Wren feeding young in a hole about 10 feet up a tree in a dark wooded area, not accessible to photograph. So I observed the behaviour of the birds for a while to see if there was an opportunity to get a shot and I noticed that they would always land on a nearby branch below the nest, checking the coast was clear before entering the hole. I searched the wood and found an old rotten branch covered in lichen, with a little persuasion I was able to get it into the ground near to the nest, I then hid close by in the foliage and waited to see if the birds would use it. Sure enough every second of third feed they used my perch, so I returned armed with camera and this is what I got. Completely wrong of course with the bird on the edge looking out of the frame, or is it? I think not, proving that sometimes breaking the rules can work.

28/05/2020

Day 28: One of the prettiest birds in the Rockies is the Mountain Bluebird. As is usual among birds the colouring of the male is more vivid than the female. Resplendent with vivid blue feathers, similar in colour to our kingfisher, you can often catch a glance of the bluebird as it flits in amongst the trees. I have many shots of both male and female at various times of the year, but this is among my favourites. Taken in the spring, the male bluebird was perched on the branch of a willow and for me created the perfect foil against the verdant green of the wooded back drop.

27/05/2020

Day 27: It seems more people will be returning to work soon as the country tries to begin the return to normality. So for today’s image I have selected something appropriate. It is a modern take of the ’Brickwork toil.’ Image I recently posted. This image is taken in an establishment in Kerala using more up to date material. Here they are producing bricks made of concrete, rather than the traditional clay. There are some advantages with this method as by adding coloured dyes they can make the brick any colour and add textured patterns and vary the shape with the moulds. The ingredients for this process are simple, ballast and cement and it is the cement that is featured here. This was being unloaded from a lorry in sacks which were being stored in a small brick shed. The shed was in complete darkness save for the light coming through the small slits in the wall. With these narrow rays of light and the cement dust polluting the air it did create a very atmospheric location, albeit a pretty unsafe one.

26/05/2020

Day 26: Todays image is for a friend of mine who has had a rough patch recently. Now it is over, and things are much improved I thought I would post a winter photograph of her favourite tree. Taken at Palette Springs. Mammoth during the winter of 2014.

25/05/2020

Day 25: With lots of people off work and exercising in and around where they live they seem to be having more regular encounters with wildlife. On a recent post on our local Facebook group we had some worried people because a couple of male mute swans were seen having a bit of dust up. They were nesting pretty close together so one can understand that there would be territorial disputes. However the incident did alarm quite few people as they had never seen a dispute between adult male swans before. It was is if it was something new and needed stopping, when in reality it was an event that happens regularly between male swans, particularly during breeding season. For those who are interested in and photograph nature you will understand that it can be a cruel and bloody affair with the survival of the fittest resonating through the natural world. It seems that the public do not raise an eyebrow at a group of wolves killing a bison on wildlife documentary but when it is close to home it a different matter. For my image to day I am showing first hand the reality of existing in the wild. The was taken on one of the best wildlife days I have ever had and came amongst some really great and unique wildlife encounters. We were just returning from the Sylvan Pass in Yellowstone where we had spent 40 minutes with a grizzly bear and then we encountered a young golden eagle feeding of a dead elk carcase. Naturally, we were in high spirits as we drove off not realising that in a matter of 500 yards we were all to witness a unique wildlife moment that is rarely photographed and even never witnessed by the most experienced wildlife photographers. In reality it was not a pretty sight and be thankful that you do not sound with this image because it painful to hear. As we drove west a coyote found new born elk calf that had strayed from its mother. Now a coyote is not big enough to kill an elk calf so its aim here is to wound it as badly as it can, so it eventually dies. Nature in its rawest form and an encounter that tests the moral fibre of the onlooker. I am pleased to say that the cow elk turned up pretty quickly and chased the coyote off with no apparent harm done to the calf which ran off at full speed.

24/05/2020

Day 24: Today we have another portrait from a visit to India, this time to Gujarat in 2014. When I first visited India in 1998 I was not really into photographing people. Having to deal all types of human interaction as part of my work I used my photography to escape from the stress and conflict that this often produced. So getting out into the natural world in the peace and quiet was the order of the day. So India was a real attack on my photographic senses. It did not take too long for me to realise how colourful and interesting the people were and to be able to capture photographs of them which brought out their individuality would be a real challenge. I was inspired by the work of Roger Hance, whose portrait work of rough sleepers in London had real interaction with each individuals and I quickly decided that was sort of approach for me. I wanted to get in close so as to include details about them, where they live, what they do etc. As I have already said I like to get off the beaten track and in doing so you find people who are as interested in you as you them and this for me leads to a better rapport between us. This image “Piercing Eyes” was taken in a back street in the Brahmin Quarter of the town of Wadhwan. It is one of my favourites from a session where I met so many colourful and friendly characters. There is a really captivating directness and presence in this lady’s eyes.

23/05/2020

Day 23: The spring is now in full flow here in the United Kingdom but in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana it is just beginning, and the road is just opening up allowing access to the high passes. Along the lower slopes above 7,000 feet the road to the Beartooth Pass is dotted with stands of aspens. These aspen stands are all just coming to life with birds hollowing nesting cavities or seeking out old holes to take over. Competition is fierce for these holes with disputes over the old ones and squatters trying to sneak into the new ones while the original owners are absent. Fortunately, it all seems to be sorted one way and another and the birds can get on with rearing their young. I have had the pleasure of visiting these mountains on a number of occasion in the Montana spring and there is nothing quite like settling down in these groves and trying to locate and photograph some of the birdlife. Of course you do need to ensure you have your bear spray and of course the midge repellents and head nets. Todays image is one of the first that I took of one of the areas very colourful woodpeckers the Northern Flicker as it approached the nest hole. Shot with a 500mm with x2 converter at 1/2,500 second to freeze the action and the nest was low enough down to be able to use the forest canopy as a back drop.

22/05/2020

Day 22: One of the most iconic road trips anywhere in the world is a trip down Route 66. Just under 2,500 miles of highway that travels from Chicago on the banks of Lake Michigan to Santa Monica on the Pacific Coast. For those of a certain age and brought up in the 50’s and 60’s it became optimised in films and on television. Today over 75% of the existing road is still there, in parts the road names may have changed and now the Interstate has bypassed the many town that stood along the ‘Mother Road.’ Today with careful planning you can still follow the road and relive some of those memories from the past. While a lot has disappeared there is still a great deal being preserved for posterity as the people in the USA begin to recognise it historic significance. I have travelled the whole route on seven occasions and many parts of it in between. I have seen the changes and the older generation who have kept it alive disappearing over the years, but the spirit lives on. This image was taken at the Blue Swallow Motel, Tucumcari, New Mexico and shows one of the few remaining Art Deco Motels that is still in business. I stop here on my way along the route and the very obliging owner parks his old Pontiac outside in the evening under the neon lights. I have added a bit of ‘jiggery pokery’ to give it a 50’s feel

21/05/2020

Day 21: Off to one of my favourite locations once again. This time not one that your average tourist visits, more a place for the photographer. Palouse Evening Patterns from Steptoe Butte is taken in eastern Washington State on the borders with Idaho. The area is called the Palouse. Millions of years ago this are was formed by violent volcanic eruptions as it is part of the “Pacific Ring of Fire.” Over the years since then the land has weathered and been eroded in beautiful rolling hills that stretch a hundred miles and more. A few miles north of the town of Colfax is the remnants of a volcanic plug that rises a few hundred feet above the surrounding farms. From here it is possible to see for miles and to capture the beautiful rolling fields as they are bathed in the evening light. Taking the shot in September has allows me to get the golden corn stubble set against the rich earth that has been ploughed ready for new planting. It is this mix of harmonious tones and interlocking shapes that create such a beautiful tapestry, part natural and part man made. Sadly with modern agriculture adopting the ‘no till’ method, part of the magic has now been lost as the plough created much darker tones in the soil as it turned the earth. However it still remains a beautiful place though.

20/05/2020

Day 20: For todays image I am heading to Fort Kochi in Kerala. India is a favourite destination for me, which after my first visit in 1988 is somewhat of a surprise as I was extremely ill at the conclusion of that trip and had to take two week off work on return, much to the amusements of my colleagues. However while I was compos mentis I did realise what a wonderful place India was. Such wonderful people and places to see. The trick is to look past what is in front of you and engage with the people who seem far more content than in the west despite having much less. One of the things I like to do is go through the markets and get of the beaten tracks. This image was done on just one of those detours up an alley and into the local housing. Here I found a brother and sister playing in the street outside of their home. I took number of images for them both and individually but this one is my favourite, such fabulous eyes.

19/05/2020

Day 19: A few days back I referred to Dan & Cindy Hartman who I met when on tour to Yellowstone and who have become good friends. Today’s image has a connection to Dan which I will explain later. Whilst on a winter trip to Yellowstone I was on the Upper Terrace at Mammoth, for those who have followed me over the previous days you will know that I drop clients of here and allow then to take a 2 hours hike down to the bottom where I pick them up, so this give me time to explore around the top. As I was returning to the car I met with Allen Lloyd, who was driving the second vehicle. He pointed out what we thought was a snowshoe hare, even when you knew where it was it was hard to see, as it was pure white in the snow. Any way we got a few photographs of it as it was very obliging. Now any observant visitor to Yellowstone in the winter will be able to see the tell tale footprints of the snowshoe hare, but to actually see one is rare, as they are extremely secretive. I thought this was going to be my first siting in 10 winter visits, so I was extremely chuffed. Later I was visiting Dan’s cabin and began telling him about the snowshoe hare I found at Mammoth. I got the image up on my laptop and proceeded to show him a selection, as he scrolled through them he turned and said, “It is not a snowshoe hare but a white tailed jackrabbit.” As he said it he must have seen the abject look of utter disappointment on my face because the next sentence was “The white tailed jackrabbit has been extinct in Yellowstone for decades.” It is amazing how abject disappointment can turn to sheer delight in a matter of seconds. He was completely correct in what he said as I later confirmed that with some research. All I can say is that for a period of about four years the white tailed jackrabbit was not extinct in Yellowstone as I found it every year on my return and heres the proof.

18/05/2020

Day 18: At long last work has begun to up date my personal website. Sadly, it is long in the tooth and does not get updated regularly. The lock down has given me a chance to start work on new galleries featuring lots of recent images. To say this takes time is an understatement and I am only preparing the text and galleries for uploading. The real work is done by the brains of the operation, my Son Paul who has managed my Photoventures site since it began and originally built my personal site. Not sure what I would do without him when it comes to all this tech.
My image today was found as I searched through the thousands I have from Florida in preparation of some bird galleries. As you can see it was before social distancing and shows a group of White Pelicans preening at sundown in JNN Ding Darling Nature Reserve on Sanibel island. I have two images one with three birds the other with four. I will be posting the group of four on my personal page and the group of three on the Photoventures page, you can all make you mind if odd or even is the best.

17/05/2020

Day 17: By now we are all needing a haircut, going a tad stir crazy and the likes after 8 or so weeks in lockdown, so my image today reflects that in some way. The photograph is of a couple on Route 66 from Erick, Oklahoma, who call themselves the 'Mediocre Music Makers. They are in fact Harley and Anabelle Russel self-styled 'red necks' who entertain you in their emporium Sandhill Curiosity Shop on Main Street. There is nothing mediocre about their music as Harley was an outstanding musician in his time. The building house countless items of memorabilia from Route 66 and there is more in their garden and house out back. They are great fun to meet, though sadly Annabelle is no longer with us. Harley is still going strong and we met up again last year. He is madder than a box of frogs and now Annabelle is not around to keep him in check anything does, as a few of the ladies in the group found out. However one would not miss a visiting him on the way down the Mother Road.

16/05/2020

Day 16: One of the great thing about travelling are all the nice people you meet along the way. It is surprising how photography can be the catalyst to get people talking. Along the way you also bump into many people you know; one such event was on the top of Bryce Canyon one freezing October dawn. Suddenly I heard this voice and to my surprise it was my Leo and Carol Palmer, from Hexham, who were later to become really good friends at the Royal Photographic Society. On another notable occasion I was enjoying a rather spectacular sunset with Ivan Barrett on my favourite beach at Bandon, Oregon. As we talked we both saw this figure about a mile off running in our direction, as the figure got closer I heard him call out, “Are you Roger Reynolds.” After confirming I was, he replied “ I saw your talk at Focus on Imaging in February, and I was so blown away by your shots of Bandon I had to come.” If you wrote a script like that no one would believe it. However a couple of the greatest people I have met on my journeys came about by a chance visit to their gallery, ‘Wildlife along the Rockies’, in Silver Gate, Montana. They are of course Dan and Cindy Hartman and as the result of that opportunistic meeting we have been working together for more than 13 productive years. This has allowed me to enjoy some unique and exhilarating photographic opportunities with Dans help and guidance. I have also had the pleasure of showing both Dan and his daughter Kelly a few of our own exciting locations on their visits to the UK. Dan is a great wildlife photographer and his knowledge of North American Owls is second to none. It also helped that when he and Cindy moved to Silver Gate one of the factors was that there we American Pine Martens in the vicinity of their cabin. I am pleased to say they still live around the cabin today and offer great opportunities to photograph them in the wild, particularly in the winter months. My image for today is of the marten that went into an old flicker hole to explore and was just on his way out.

15/05/2020

Day 15: The lock down has given me the chance to sort through a few images and do a great deal of backing up. As you can imagine I take quite a few photographs, on average 10-20,000 per tour so there is a lot of backing up to do. Whilst I try and sort a selection from each tour pretty quickly it often means I can be a year behind. It also means that I miss lots of images, which on second and third run through I ask myself how. Today’s image is one of those and is one of two images taken within milliseconds of each other. This goes back to the winter of 2015 and I was putting the Sigma 150-600 Sports Zoom through its paces. This lens had just been launched and was one of the first in the UK. I have been testing new lenses and cameras for Sigma for a number of years so this was nothing new. However I have to say that this lens was something special and to give it a thorough test I left my usual 500mm at home. I was not to be disappointed as it is a cracking lens making a quality long telephoto lens available for those that cannot afford the often exorbitant prices of those offered by the major manufacturers. When we are at Mammoth in the winter we usually drop the clients off at the Upper Terrace and let them walk down. This usually takes 2-3 hours. So I had sometime to spare and on reaching the Upper Terrace I spotted a flock of Bohemian Waxwings feeding on the junipers. They flew off while the group were around but returned after about an hour allowing me to get a few (hundred) shots. In this image two are just taking off from a dead pine branch. Naturally, I was delighted to get both birds sharp and in focus. Canon 7D Mk2 – Sigma 150-600 Sport F8 at 1/800th second.

14/05/2020

Day 14: One of my favourite winter fox images taken in the Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. There were two foxes hunkered down during a snow storm behind a snow drift. I observed that occasionally they would stir and look up very briefly with their ears and eyes appearing just above the ridge of the drift. I wanted to try and capture this image, but they were some way behind the line of the drift so focussing was a challenge as the event was over seconds and I had to use a long telephoto lens to frame them. I was fortunate that they stayed in position for a long period popping up now and then, allowing me plenty of opportunities to fine tune things and eventually get the focus and composition right for this shot. This shot was the centre piece of my last one man exhibition “Journey” and the 4ft by 3ft print sold before the exhibition opened. It was a popular image from the exhibitions as a few copies were sold, and I was honoured to present a copy to my great friend the late Tom Davie to enjoy in the last years of his life.

13/05/2020

Day 13: For todays image I am featuring one of my favourite locations on the Oregon Coast. This is Thor’s Well at Cape Perpetua State Park. The shot was taken in early November at sunset using a 24mm lens and big stopper filter to get a long enough exposure and a grad for the sky. To be able to get this shot the tidal conditions need to be right and the waves big enough but not so as to be too risky. Thor’s well is really a sea cave in ancient lava where part of the roof has collapsed, when the tide and waves are right they sweep into the cave and explode out of the hole above. The shot is taken when the explosion of the wave is complete, and the water begins to drop back down the hole. When the wave explodes it fills the surrounding area, so the hole is like a giant natural plughole and the slow shutter speed allows you to capture the woolly effect of the moving water. The shot is not for the faint hearted as you need to stand about 8 feet from the hole on of raised area of lava rock and make sure you always stay alert for those sneaker waves.

12/05/2020

Day 12: Time for one of my all time favourite bird photographs. This shot of a great egret in flight was taken at the Venice Rookery in Florida. Florida is a great location for birding photography as the birds in general are less wary of humans. This allows one to get close to many species without having to resort to hides etc. This does raise the bar a great deal as the opportunity and abundance of subjects set greater challenges to the photographer. With the increase capability offered by digital photography I have always wanted to rise to that challenge and try to capture more challenging images. This shot was taken directly into the setting sun in order to capture the dramatic back lighting through the bird’s plumage. To add to the challenge the bird was flying into land and I was using a 500mm lens with a 1.4 extender on a gimbal head. I hope, like me, you enjoy the wonderful back light on the bird’s head and coming through the feathers.

11/05/2020

Day 11: With the latest news that some people can return to work on Wednesday I thought a topical image might be the order of the day. With the building industry set to resume I though this photograph from a brickworks in India might fit. All over India there are small locally operated brickworks where everything is done by hand. The clay is mixed and made into individually bricks in a simple wooden mould. Each mould has a raided mark at the bottom to leave an identification mark. The bricks are then neatly aligned in rows on the ground to bake in the sun. When they are hard they are built into a beehive shaped structure with each layer separated by another layer of charcoal. When complete the charcoal is lit and they are left to be fired over many hours. Once the process is completed they are unloaded and shipped off ready for building. This image shows the young men unloading the fired bricks, the dust is the remnants of the burnt charcoal and it is that which creates the incredible atmosphere when shot against the light.

10/05/2020

Day 10: Today, an image of a very well-known location, Tangled Creek, that I have visited on too many occasions to count. I discovered the location on my first trip to Yellowstone in the late 90’s and had difficulty getting a name for it, even the Ranger got it wrong. I was later to find that my great friend, the late Alan Millward FRPS had visited the area a year of so previously so was the first Brit to photograph there. In the early days now one else stopped here, and I vividly recall early one morning a man from Wisconsin stopping and asking what we were photographing. I did no more and invited him to look through the lens and he suddenly got it. He quickly got his large format camera out and started snapping, he was still there a few hours after when we returned from breakfast at Old Faithful. I did not have the nerve to tell him the place only came alive during the magic hours after sunrise. This image was taken in the spring and is my favourite which is surprising as it does not actually show the creek but the pines to the north.

09/05/2020

Day 9: One of the things I have always wanted to see was the Aurora Borealis. I have seen in whilst in flight returning from winter tours in the USA and had faint glimpses of it whilst in the north of Scotland. However I had never seen it in all its glory until visiting Iceland in the October of 2018. During the 10 day tour we were witness to four nights of the aurora. On two nights it was very cloudy, and this obscured the best part of it. On the third we had partial cloud cover but had a fairly good show for 20 minutes which I was pleased with. That was until we arrived in Grundarfjordur on the Snaefellsness Peninsular. Here we were witness to the most magical display that lasted more than an hour as it lit over the sea and Kirkjufell under a totally clear sky. This is just one of hundreds of images I captured during the time. An experience I will never forget.

08/05/2020

Day 8: Today we are celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Victory in Europe. Although the social distancing rules have prevented us from having our street parties we have been able to enjoy one of our special British Icons, the Red Arrows as they did their fly past over central London. This reminded me of a topical image that you will hopefully enjoy. Whilst on our tour to California in 2008 we were spending the first few days in San Francisco where no visit is complete without seeing the Golden Gate Bridge. As we were enjoying our visit there we were treated to an aerobatic display by the display team of the United States Navy, the Blue Angels. I did tell the clients that I had organised it specially for them but in truth they were practicing over the Bay for the upcoming Navy Day.

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