Our trip to Skomer followed a period of growing interest in photographing birds which started in the Cairngorms in Scotland in 2009. The desire to see that most endearing of birds – the Puffin, resulted in Karen enthusiastically researching the most appropriate location to allow us photograph them in their natural habitat. The web search led us to Andy’s website where spending a day with a professional photographer who could build on our photographic knowledge, guarantee us a seat on the boat and know the best place to locate Puffins seemed like a plan for success.

The sun shone from a cloudless sky as a fellow enthusiastic Viv, Andy and the two of us headed towards Skomer. Having landed we headed across the island to where Andy knew Puffins would be plentiful. We unloaded our equipment and Andy took us through the basics of capturing a good image – even before we finished the basics of f-stops the first Puffin came into view and our lesson was briefly interrupted as we ‘snapped’ our first subject. Lesson complete (very good and covering all we needed to know – plus more .. to enable us to capture good quality images under a range of conditions) we practiced what we had learnt…

When time for lunch arrived we headed to the warden’s centre for a bite to eat and to review in more details what we had managed to capture and photograph some sun basking seals. With additional pointers from Andy on how we could improve our images we headed out to spend several magical hours watching and photographing this amazing bird together with Razorbills, Choughs, Rabbits and others yet to be identified J….

This has to be one of the most enjoyable photographic days we have ever had – Andy is an excellent teacher and with his knowledge of the area not only do you learn how to take photographs but also where else in beautiful Pembrokeshire you can locate more amazing birds to capture.

We aim to return in the feeding season and hope to complete other courses with Andy!!

Karen and David