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| In this month's newsletter... | |
| IMAGE OF THE MONTH | |
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| Winter wader roost, Norfolk, England. | |
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A Happy and Healthy New Year to all! It's resolution time again and one of mine over recent years has been to work much closer to home and to get around to visiting some of the UK's wildlife spectacles that perhaps I've previously overlooked. One such example is the wader roost at the RSPB Snettisham Reserve in Norfolk, a location I've long wanted to visit. By good fortune I was passing recently on a date that coincided with a high tide. OK, conditions were far from perfect and the huge swirling knot flocks that the reserve often witnesses, kind of didn't happen, but what a spectacle nevertheless. I heard an interesting statistic the other day: that 50% of people living in England had never visited Scotland (that's terrible!). If the same is true of Norfolk, does that mean that 30 million people are missing out on this natural wonder? BEHIND THE LENS: To be honest I was unsure whether to shoot this slow or fast - in other words to blur the birds or freeze them. In the event I fell between the two (1/250sec) and was kicking myself for my indecision. I think I'd have preferred more blur! Using a 500mm lens I framed to include a band of stationery birds at the foot of the picture with the exploding flock of knot filling the rest of the frame. Turning the image to black and white and adding a touch of grain adds...I'm not sure what! |
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| PHOTO-TOUR NEWS AND OFFERS | |
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The first snows of winter have fallen and although I know I won't be popular for saying this, I'm personally hoping for much more of the white fluffy stuff! We'll see. It's fair to say that the New Year brings real challenges to the business of nature photography, but within those challenges there are opportunities. We'll be doing our level best therefore to explore new ways to improve our photo tour business and in doing so, enhance our guests' experiences. If you have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions about new locations or just new ways of doing things, please do get in touch. Wherever you're planning on taking pictures during 2012, have lots and lots of fun! |
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| Brown Bear Blitz! | |
 If you've never photographed (or even seen) a brown bear, then you really should. Our new tour to the remote forests of Eastern Finland allows you to get up close to one of Europe's most charismatic creatures. From specially designed photography hides in a variety of attractive habitats, you can often see more than a dozen bears in just one night!Regular readers will recall previous mention of combining bears with wolverine photography. Unfortunately the cost was prohibitive so you'll just have to make do with bears!! More details here. |
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| Hide rental | |
 Our red squirrel and crested tit photography hides are available each winter from November to March. These specially sited forest hides provide fantastic opportunities to secure great images of these Highland specialists, all against the strunning backdrop of the Cairngorms National Park.Other birds that visit our feeding stations include coal tit, great-spotted woodpecker and jay. More details here. |
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| Availability stop press! | |
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Many of our 2012 tours are now full but we still have availability on some, including these: Winter Wildlife: 18-24 Feb 2012: 2 places. Book here. Winter Wildlife: 25 Feb - 2 Mar 2012: 2 places. Book here. Wild West Coast: 31 Mar - 5 Apr 2012: 3 places. Book here. Kingdom of the Ice bear: 4-13 Aug 2012: 3 places. Book here. |
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| January sale!!! | |
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OK here's the deal, it's a one off... We have two places (couple/sharing twin only) remaining on our tour to Arctic Norway in search of the magical northern lights as well as the most dramatic of winter coastlines. Dates are 17-22 Feb. For a couple booking we are offering a discount of £500 on the published price of the tour and in addition, we will donate £150 to a conservation charity of your choice. Even M&S can't beat that!! All you need to do is enter this voucher code (NS-7646-SENJ) when booking online, but there are only two spaces and the code can only be used once, so it's first come first served! Click here for more information and to book. |
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| IN OTHER NEWS... | |
| New podcast | |
 The latest in our One2One podcast series is now online - an interview with Andy Parkinson, a man who wears his not inconsiderable heart on his sleeve. We grabbed him following his presentation at Wildphotos. Listen to Andy's musings along with the thoughts of other leading photographers on our web site. |
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| 2020VISION | |
 For those of you receiving this newsletter for the first time, you may not be aware of 2020VISION, a really cool conservation photography initiative involving 20 of the UK's top nature photographers...plus me. Visit the project website or read the Photogerphers' Diaries blog. You can also follow the progress of the project on Facebook and Twitter.And...from 1st Feb there will be a new image everyday for a year available to download from the website - that's 365 stunning images! In the meantime check out some of the team's latest work on the BBC Wildlife website. |
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| Flickr | |
| We're well aware that our guests take some great pictures on our tours and we also know that you like to share your images, which is why we've created a Flickr group for you to do just that. Visit the Northshots Photo Tours Guest Images group to upload and share your images, and to see what images other guests have been taking. The group is brand new so if you hurry you'll be amongst the first to upload! | |
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| Top 5 images of 2011! | |
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Starting on 3rd Jan for 5 days, I'll be posting my favourite images from 2011 on the Northshots blog. They're not all classics by any means, but are images that I enjoyed taking and with stories attached to them. Tune in and see what you think. And don't forget we're on Facebook with almost daily posts; we also do a bit of tweating. None of it makes any sense to us, but we'd nevertheless be delighted if you could join in the fun...and feel free to make your own posts on our wall. |
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| A.M.A.N.D.A (Amanda's Musings AND Anecdotes) | |
| Amanda just loves Christmas - it's something to do with a head injury when she was small. In this month's blog she gives us an insight into life in a house where the Christmas Fairy gets all cosy with the Ghost of Christmas never was, isn't, and never will be. | |
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To ensure receipt of our emails, please add info@northshots.com to your address book. This mail is sent to Northshots subscribers, picture editors and natural history enthusiasts. Please respect the time and effort invested in this type of photography by not using these images without prior permission. |
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