10 | WILDLIFE
Deerly beloved
Put some spring into your step and capture roe deer, says
Ben Sutcliffe
Ben Sutcliffe
I grew up in the south of England, close to the South Downs National Park where creatures such as roe deer and brown hares were my main focus. It was here at just aged 10 that I first picked up a Nikon D80 DSLR and started taking images of the wildlife I spotted on my walks in the countryside. Now over a decade later, it’s fair to say that I have improved a lot since then. The peak season for photographing roe deer is between the months of May and September, in the run-up to their annual rut, and for a short while after. It can take weeks before you get the shots you want and you normally only learn by making mistakes. Please remember that the animal’s welfare is paramount: as wildlife photographers, we should always strive to document our subject’s behaviour rather than disrupt it.