Last weekend was brutal, but strangely rewarding.

As part of our course, Wildlife and Adventure Media students attended a weekend trip to Ratlingate Scout Activity Centre to improve in all things media.

On the evening of our arrival, we were set our first brief at 9pm: capture images of the night sky. This was immediately a daunting concept for me; when it comes to photography there is no doubt that I am a daytime specialist, and struggle to even get a clear picture by night. However, I was here to try new things, so I grasped my monopod and set out into the wilderness.

It ended up being a fairly cloudy night, so there were few stars to see let alone photograph. I managed to capture a few scenes in focus, and now feel a lot more confident approaching this style of photography.

The following morning we were up at 5am, filming the sunrise! We had to create a time lapse in groups; here are some still shots I took when the sky finally started to light up.

For one of the photography tasks we had to shoot water, both still and moving. Here’s one of my more successful outcomes.

Finally, we had to go out and find some wildlife. In commercialised woodland designed for scout use, this was quite difficult. The only bird I saw during the whole weekend was a pigeon, so glimpsing the roe deer they boasted was less than likely. Instead, I chose the artsy approach. In both of the images below, I worked with a theme of contrast: harsh against soft.

Needless to say, I was exhausted when we got back Sunday afternoon, but Media Skills Weekend was a valuable experience and I know my technique has improved.