In May 2023, I took a holiday with Alex and Brew dog to the Isle of Mull. Obviously I couldn’t leave my camera behind and every opportunity I got I snuck away for a little bit of photography. This means my photography was limited to what was near our camper van, but on the spectacular beaches that we stayed at there was always something to photograph!

We can spend so much money the newest and fanciest gear these days, but do we need it? Can we still create great images with budget gear? I’m a big believer that the photography gear we use is a tool and most of the great images we produce comes more from using our knowledge of composition, light and animal behaviour.

Black Grouse are stunning, secretive birds with a thrilling courtship display. Extremely sensitive to disturbance, it can be a challenge to photograph them, but with the right set up, it’s an unforgettable experience.

A fantastic trip to Dovre in January 2023 where I was joined by Gunnar Dresler, Oddbjørn Austevik and Trond Westby to photograph the muskox in the snow. A cabin trip with good company and 3 days of wildlife photography, I can’t think of a better way to kick off the year!

One of my favourite things to do at the end of the year is to go through my Lightroom collection and pick out my favourite images of the year. I started doing this in 2020 and settled on 21 photos, so now that’s been my standard number of images I pick out each year. I use b-roll I’ve captured through the year and make a video set to music with no talking.

When we finally got a snow day in Perthshire I spent all day out filming and photographing my local wildlife. I really wanted to put together a Christmas Special video for YouTube and I’m happy to say that the snow, the wildlife and the photos all came together in the end.

During a cold spell in December 2022 I decided to go to Glenshee to photograph mountain hares. It was a tough day in the hills and I didn’t find many hares. However, the few encounters I got were spectacular and the light at the end of the day was so good that I even tried for a bit of landscape photography.

Garden bird photography is the ideal way to practice wildlife photography as you get to control more variables than you ever will when out in the field photographing birds. With a good feeder set up, you effectively create your very own bird photography studio.

I spent the evening of 29th of July and the morning of the 30th to photograph the gannets at Troup Head, Scotland. You can check out a video I made from my visit along with many others on my YouTube Channel. If you want to dive deeper into learning wildlife…