APPRENTICE
Nikon School’s Neil Freeman takes our reader to one of England’s last pockets of red squirrels
THE APPRENTICE
NAME: Alan Wrisberg
CAMERA: Nikon D500
Alan is a police sergeant from Scotland. He used to be an avid athlete and always took an interest in the trackside photographers. By the time he was coaching athletics and his own children were playing sports, he was capturing his own action photography. He started with Olympus cameras, but when autofocus became the norm, he switched to what the pros were using, Nikon. He now owns a D500 and is considering the move to a full-frame (FX) DSLR or mirrorless.
THE PRO
NAME: Neil Freeman
CAMERA: Nikon Z 9
Neil is training manager at Nikon School, heading up Nikon-focused workshops to shoot every subject under the sun, but his passion is nature photography. So much so that he relocated from his native London to the Yorkshire town of Harrogate, which has four National Parks within just a couple of hours’ drive. He’s photographed red squirrels countless times and what he doesn’t know about Nikon, doesn’t yet exist. www.nikonschool.co.uk
Wildlife photographer Paul Fowlie looks after a small woodland in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales that’s home to a healthy contingent of red squirrels. A series of purpose-built hides allows him to run workshops and rent the space to photographers seeking unprecedented access to the UK’s only indigenous squirrel. Sadly, the introduction of the grey squirrel in the 19th century devastated the red population and today these beautiful little creatures reside mainly in Ireland and Scotland, with only a few pockets left in England and Wales. Paul’s hides (https://bit.ly/3ZQPq22) are nestled within a quaint woodland, marked only by a remote gate at the side of a winding road. Neil and his apprentice, Alan, met the day after the UK’s much talkedabout Storm Agnes, so the spitting rain was a far cry from the deluge that battered the countryside in the early hours. “Mind your step,” said Paul as he led them downhill along a boggy trail that footsteps had carved into the countryside.
SUPER SHOT #1
Camera: Nikon D500
Lens: 120-300mm f/2.8
Exposure: 1/500 sec, f/2.8, ISO10,000
After 10 minutes of picking their way through mud, they arrived at the Woodland Hide. Insid
