Shot of the month
Guy Edwardes reveals how he shot this unusual take on gannets
Guy Edwardes’ amazing shot of gannets
It’s been 25 years since I started photographing this gannet colony on Great Saltee, off the coast of Ireland. I literally have thousands of pictures of these seabirds now, so I am always looking for a different approach to photographing them.
You can get quite close to the birds. I had noticed it was possible to get out-of-focus birds in the foreground, and in-focus ones in the distance to create a feeling of depth – and giving a better feeling of the colony. In this case, the gannets closest to my 100-400mm are non-breeding birds, while the pair in the distance are tending a nest.
The difficulty with the shot is that there are thousands of birds, so getting a clean composition took a lot of patience. I didn’t want birds flying in the background, and had to wait until all four birds were facing suitable directions. I used the camera handheld, making it easier to make small adjustments to the framing until everything looked just right. I had tried this shot on a bright day, but it worked best in overcast conditions. The white in the background is the sky, while the white in the foreground is guano – bird droppings that have built up on the cliffs over the year.
The result is a high-key image, which one of my Twitter followers thought was snow! I made sure that the shot was exposed further to the right than usual, so the sky is actually burnt out. This ensured getting detail in the showdowy plumage.