Durham Wildlife Trust’s Rainton Meadows

Outdoor shoots like this are so enjoyable when the sun shines as it did this day! I was invited to Rainton Meadows, part of Durham Wildlife Trust to capture photography of their nature reserve facilities and portraits of their volunteers. The imagery was to use for their marketing material designed by local design agency Intimation Creative, to attract more people to visit the local nature reserve.

The birds conveniently flocked to the sky whilst shooting the bird hide, disturbed by my venture into the marshes. The autumnal sun was low and striking, with light bouncing everywhere so there were some excellent photo opportunities for high contrast silhouettes and reflections.

The smiley happy volunteers were clearing the pond area of vast amounts of rushes and were happy to stop to have portraits taken for the “My Wildlife’ poster campaign that features strong photography of the people who make the Durham Wildlife Trust such a great place to visit. The sunlight was challenging as I used it to light my subjects and inevitably it caused people to squint, however pointing my camera in this direction away from the sun gave me the most fantastic rich blue sky backdrop. A handful of the shots from the day are below and I am sure you will see more rolled out across the website and at the Rainton Meadows and High Barns centres.

To visit a Wildlife Trust near you, visit http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/ to find out more.