Climbing Mount Improbable

The title of this blog post comes a 1996 Richard Dawkins popular science book and is, like many of his titles, an extended metaphor whose theme is extended throughout the book.

Think of Dawkins what you will but he is undoubtedly a master of metaphor and climbing mount improbable is one of his best. It counters the well known creationist metaphor of Paley's watch. Namely, that life, much like an intricate pocket watch, is too complex to have come about by chance. Life, like the watch, Paley argued, necessitates a designer.

One metaphor for evolution is of an N-dimensional adaptive landscape. Any mutation moves a species through the landscape. If a mutation improves a individuals' competitive ability it will rise higher. If it decreases its competitive ability, it will fall lower. Over time, those individuals 'higher' up the landscape and therefore better adapted are favoured by evolution - perhaps imagine a flood drowning those lower down - until, millions of years later, every surviving species towers over the landscape upon its own mount improbable.

Paley viewed the ascent of mount improbable as impossible without the conscious hand of a designer, God, placing each species on the top. Evolution ignores the height and cliffs of mount improbable, simply, slowly, and blindly climbing around the back.

Evolution does not have a goal - it is a mindless algorithm favouring better adapted individuals - but I do. Sometimes, becoming a wildlife photographer seems as remote a possibility as climbing my own mount improbable. My adaptive landscape contains peaks dominated by the giants of the business and each seems very remote.

My challenge, like anyone else's, is to doggedly fight my way around the landscape rejecting less successful ventures and accepting more profitable ones. It is not to waste time finding a non-existent magic bullet ride to the top nor to follow someone successful else up their peak. Hopefully, in this way, I will eventually find myself blinking in the light on a deserted peak with a view to die for.

Oh and, in case you had not guessed, one of my new years resolutions is to blog more frequently.

Just a memory

This weekend I watched as the last snow on the hills around Preston in the Scottish Borders melted away. Somewhat appropriately, I have just edited the last of my images from a day trip Lee Webb and I took to the Elan Valley in the height of winter.

From Rhyader we took the mountain road to Aberystwyth, fully expecting the road to be unpassable. Sure enough we soon had to stop before a large snowdrift. We decided to have a little walk (long walks are quite difficult in 6 foot snow drifts) around the area and found it to be a wonderland of drifting snow and ice-encrusted blades of grass.

A few minute into our walk I turned to see a large yellow snow plow heading up the road past our car. Perfect! We headed back to the vehicle and followed the plough up the road, taking photographs and helping other motorists as we went. Quite a fun day out!

When photographing in snow I find the hardest thing is to concentrate on finding photogenic angles of beautiful scenes. It is very easy to think "this will look great because of the snow" without checking if it does, often resulting in scenes remarkable only because of their whiteness. I tend to focus on contours and shadows in the snow, hopefully bringing definition into white scenes. I love the deep blue shadows cast on snow and ice and how these contrast with those parts lit by winter sunshine.

I also like to pick out elements that hint at the smothered landscape below. In this case the abundant ice-covered grass blades fitted the bill perfectly, and when backlit looked like jewels.

My favourite photograph of the day is the bottom photograph. This not only shows jewel-like grass,low winter sunshine, and deep blue shadows, but is brought to life by snow drifting through the image. I personally think that anything that adds movement to otherwise static landscapes brings them to life.

Tree Rats and the White Stuff

I know I have slightly missed the boat on this one, but seeing as every newspaper, tv channel, and casual conversation last week was jam packed with facts figures and images about this winter's record breaking "big freeze" I thought I should publish at least one article mentioning it. I will however try and make it a little more thoughtful than a generic article with the format "ooh! snow! *insert happy childish or cynical adult comments*"

The benefits of a local patch can never be overstated enough. Every wildlife photographer dreams of the big trips to Yellowstone, the Okavango Delta, or the snow monkeys of Japan. Even days out in places such as Wales seem more appealing than another trip to a well known place. In reality dedicated photographers grab most of their "keepers" near their homes in patches they know well.

During my undergraduate degree in Oxford my local patch because Port Meadow; the largest open meadow in England bisected, and sometimes flooded, by the Thames.

During the winter the flood plains were a mecca for wildfowl including hundreds of geese and one year around 200 golden plover (sorry for adding yet another silhouette to my blog!)

At my home in Worcester, my bird-feeder-filled garden is my local patch. One group of visitors to the garden, much to my parents annoyance, is our local grey squirrel population. In the past I have had grabbed some shots of them in our plum trees, despite the fact they are a little more skittish than the average garden squirrel as my parents regularly chase them with shouts of "bloody tree rats".

This winter I finally had the chance to photograph them in the snow, resulting in an image with an almost monochrome palette. I always find simple palettes help reduce the complexity of images making them more effective, especially when they are combined with narrow depths of field such as those produced with the 300mm F2.8 lens I currently have on loan from Nottingham University's biological photography department.

I hope you will agree that the moral of the story is not to neglect your local wildlife. Just because it is everyday does not mean it is uninteresting, even if it is a nasty foreign invader! This term my aim in Nottingham is to photograph the Foxes and Badgers that seem to be only too keen to leave their deposits in my garden, I shall keep you posted.