Poultry Books

Poultry,smallholding,country Books and Artists work, Rupert Stephenson Has Contributed To:

Comments from the Authors:

From J. C. Jeremy Hobson

I have been writing on the subject of field sports and rural matters for over thirty years. However, it was not until 2002 that I decided to move to France in order to take up a full-time freelance writing career. I quickly came to realise that it is often the illustration which accompanies the text that attracts the casual browser rather than any amount of erudite words, and, not being blessed with a natural talent for photography, finding suitable high quality photos was always a problem – especially when it came to illustrating my various poultry-orientated articles and books. It was, therefore, a very lucky day for me when Liz Wright, the editor of Smallholder magazine, happened to mention that I should get in touch with Robert (aka Rupert) Stephenson.   

   

Since that day, Rupert has kept me supplied with innumerable photographs for both articles and books: in fact, were it not for him, both Backyard Poultry Keeping and Backyard Ducks and Geese (published by Crowood) would have plenty of blank spaces as the photos which appear within their pages were due entirely to his kindness and professionalism! Rupert also supplied several images for Successful Smallholding – which I co-authored with Phil Rant, and is already busy working on preparing photographs for a forthcoming project recently commissioned by Quiller Publishing.   

   

As yet I have never had the good fortune to meet Rupert personally, but we have had much email correspondence over several years. No matter how seemingly obscure the subject matter may be, he has almost always managed to find something suitable tucked away in the innermost depths of his computer files and, most importantly bearing in mind publisher’s deadlines, somehow managed to supply them almost overnight! Should anyone reading this be in need of high quality photographs with which to illustrate their work, or if any publishers wish to update their existing photographic libraries, they could do no better than contact Rupert. They will not be disappointed.  

 From Celia Lewis Author and Artist  

My first book, Keeping Chickens, co-written with Jeremy Hobson, was full of photos from many sources but chickens are very hard to photograph and some of the breed illustrations simply did not show how the hens looked.  Luckily Jeremy came across Robert(Rupert) Stephenson and the updated edition now contains his far superior photographs.  

 After Keeping Chickens was published I felt there was room for a more comprehensive breed book and The Illustrated Guide to Chickens which covers 100 different breeds with watercolour illustrations, was born.  Although I keep many different breeds of chickens the bulk of my paintings are done from photographs and I need good quality ones to work from.  Kindly, Robert allowed me to use some of his and they appear in the book.  

 I am now working on The Illustrated Guide to Ducks & Geese and find I rely heavily on his excellent work.  

  

Rupert has a passion for poultry and ‘poultry photography’and has provided Fancy Fowl with many essential photos over the years, to include the Decembetr 2010 and current issue front covers among many others.  

The photos in this month’s Federation report(FEB 2011),as well as the recent National,and waterfowl shows were taken by Rupert,  who also supplied the lighting and photographic backgrounds and equiptment.  

  

Rupert doing what he loves best  

Rupert knows only too well the difficulties in getting birds to stand correctly,especially when time is a factor but has the skills and knows when to squeeze the trigger.

We at Fancy Fowl greatly appreciate his efforts and would like to acknowledge his contribution to our growing magazine, Thank you Rupert!.  

   

   

   

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