THEAPPRENTICE
This month we visited Skomer, aka Puffin Island, as PhotoPlus reader Mark Braybook paired up with pro wildlife photographer Drew Buckley to learn to take some incredible bird photos
SHOOT WITH A PRO
APPRENTICE
NAME:
MARK BRAYBROOK
CAMERA:
CANON EOS 6D
FIFTY-FIVE-year-old Mark worked as a professional photographic printer at Colour Processing for 25 years. He recently wrote to us asking for some tips and advice on how to get the most out of his Canon EOS 6D camera and he has also acquired a Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary lens. As he’s based in South Wales, we paired him up for the day with wildlife pro photographer Drew Buckley and they headed off to Skomer Island to practise puffin portraits and fast flight action.
CANON PRO
NAME:
DREW BUCKLEY
CAMERA:
CANON EOS R5
DREW IS a Canon professional landscape and wildlife photographer based in South Wales, a regular PhotoPlus contributor, and has taken pictures for publications such as Photographing South Wales and The Puffin Book. From May to July, he runs workshops on Skomer island, the second largest island off the Welsh coast – home to large colonies of Atlantic Puffins, some 6,000 pairs – where you can get close enough to take amazing portraits and flying shots of the birds. For more information or to book a workshop, visit his website: drewbuckleyphotography.com
PRO TIP
WHEN taking animal portraits, it’s a good idea to be at eye level with your subject. As puffins are small, this means crouching or lying down. It makes the shot more intimate and engaging, and enables you to increase the distance between subject and background, making it easier to create shallow depth of field effects for bokeh and softer backgrounds.
HOT SHOT #1
MARK 'S COMMENT
I met up with Drew in Marloes with plenty of time to spare to get our tickets for the ferry to Skomer. It was a beautiful summer’s day and as soon as we made it to the island, the amount of incredible wildlife was clear to see. With five hours until our boat returned to take us back, we didn’t hang about and got straight off to one of Drew’s favourite locations, The Wick. There were narrow paths, which meant a tripod wasn’t practical, so I handheld my Sigma 150-600mm but switched on image stabilization. I als
