Mary Griffin meets Coventry’s specialist poultry photographer.
Mary Griffin meets Coventry’s specialist poultry photographer.
reproduced by kind permission of the Coventry Telegraph 2011
reproduced by kind permission of the Coventry Telegraph 2011
PHOTOGRAPHER Rupert Stephenson spends his spare time taking pictures of good looking birds.
But rather than appearing in lads’ mags, Rupert’s photos are more likely to be seen in Fancy Fowl and Smallholder magazines.
COVENTRY – home of Lady Godiva, the British car industry and two-tone music.
But did you know the city has also produced one of the world’s premier poultry photographers?
Easter is a special time for Rupert Stephenson as he hatches newborn chicks at his 
“>Coundon home to rear on a smallholding in Corley.
Showing me around his brood, Rupert holds up a chocolate brown egg from a French Maran, a white egg from a lemon and gold spotted Porcelain Dutch, and some green, blue and olive eggs from his Araucana hens.
He also has blue Andalusians and the world’s smallest breed of chicken, the Malaysian Serama, which he says weighs as little as a chicken leg from KFC.
Rupert, of Coventry U.K, comes from a family of farmers who sold poultry and shellfish in the city from the early 1900s to just three years ago when Rupert (known locally as Rupert the Fish) packed up his stall in Coventry Market to spend more time on his hobby – poultry photography.
It may sound like a niche pursuit, but there are specialist poultry photographers dotted around the world. There are even specialist poultry artists using Rupert’s photos to produce their paintings.
His work is in demand, not only from prize-winning poultry owners who want to capture their moment of glory, but from authors writing books for the growing number of families who are keeping chickens for the first time.
Rupert is too modest to claim he’s the best poultry photographer in the country and cites Stephen Green-Armytage, an American, as possibly one of the best in the world.
But he does admit he’s now about equal to his mentor, Dr Hans Schippers, a specialist poultry photographer based in Holland, who took Rupert under his wing when he was first perfecting his technique.
He said: “Because I can’t keep many poultry at home I decided that taking photos of the ones I liked and looking at them on the computer was the next best option.
“I was at a poultry show one day and was watching the late great John Tarren – a very good poultry photographer – in action and thought to myself, ‘I’d love to do something as good as that’.
After Tarren’s death, Rupert was asked if he could step in and take some pictures of prize poultry for a magazine.
He said: “They were very amateur and very average quality. I had a bog standard camera at the time and no studio.
“But the magazine liked my style and asked if I could supply them with photos from shows.”
Rupert now uses a Nikon camera and has his own portable studio with a selection of backgrounds, telescopic tripods and cool lights so the birds don’t get dehydrated during their fifteen minutes of fame.
Before a show, most owners will treat their feathered friends to a bath, a blow dry and a polish with a velvet cloth to shine the feathers.
“It’s like any hobby in life,” says Rupert, “whether it’s football, golf or dog shows, there’s the age old human instinct of wanting to compete against each other and be the best.
“People are easier to photograph than poultry, but I’m not keen on taking pictures of people because getting them to present themselves naturally for a photo is impossible.”
Rupert’s pictures have appeared in Fancy Fowl magazine and Smallholder, and he has regular online appearances on the Poultry Keeper website.
His images have also been used in books published in New Zealand, South Africa, France and the UK.
He said: “Keeping poultry is the fastest growing hobby in the country, if not in Europe – especially in this time of economic gloom and self-sufficiency.
“Magazines, books and the internet are now catering for the vast amount of people that need help and information on getting started.”
Rupert started out at poultry shows, helping to position different breeds for their pictures in return for technical advice from professional photographers, including the Daily Mail’s livestock photographer.
And he’s eager to draw a distinction between what he calls “poultry photographers” and “photographers of poultry”.
He says: “Many photographers can take excellent photos – far better than mine – but they don’t understand the subject. To get a really great shot you have to understand the breed or subject matter
“Whether it’s horses, racing cars or poultry, if you don’t understand the subject, no matter how good your photography skills, you’ll take a poor picture.
“With my background, I understand the birds and I understand how they need to be presented at shows.”
Rupert’s fondness for keeping his own birds is similar to the affection gardeners have for growing their own food.
He says: “It starts off in April when you see your birds making a nest. They lay their eggs, you go every day to tend them and they become bonded to you.
“three weeks later there’s a little tiny squeak and a new life.
“Then all summer you can watch it grow up. They become part of the family.
“I enjoy that cycle every year and I enjoy teaching other people the joys of the simple things in life.”
He adds: “The real reward of poultry photography is seeing that once-in-a-lifetime photo and knowing you’ve captured that picture for posterity and it can now be seen worldwide.
“People see it and think, ‘I like that bird, I might keep some of those myself’, so you’ve encouraged somebody else to maintain that rare breed.”
As well as the posed poultry photography, Rupert takes opportunist wildlife and countryside pictures.
But for the foreseeable future he plans to concentrate on his niche.
He said: “At 50 years old I know that you can be good at some things, rubbish at others and mediocre at most, but I know what I’m good at.”
above article reproduced by kind permission of the Coventry Telegraph 2011
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Born in 1959 in Keresley, near Coventry, I grew up in a rural setting in the countryside of Meriden, as a boy we had a few brown hens some light Sussex and my brother kept peacocks, as all my family were smallholders and farmers, I basically grew up on someone’s farm, never spending any time indoors and school holidays were great spent fishing rabbiting, potato picking infact just having a good time in the countryside.
Birds fish and animals have always been in my blood, having kept a variety of things in my youth from tropical fish to finches and always a few ferrets and laying hens.
In the mid 1970′s we moved to the center of Coventry, a real difference for a country boy, but we managed to keep and show some top class Blue and Opal Rex rabbits, winning at the London’s Alexandra palace, and this is also the time when I developed my love of dahlia growing from my step father who grew some real beauties and to this day I still grow around 50 dahlias from giants at 12″ across to dwarfs and tiny pom-poms at only 2″ across.
Then after finishing school in 1976 we moved back out to the suburbs of Coventry to our present home where we have been since then, the garden was a jungle when we moved in and we set about renovating it.
This was a good exercise for me as I was serving my apprentership with Coventry parks department at the time. First we used it as a large vegetable plot, producing our own greens and flowers and winning a few times with our cauliflowers at the local show, but I always had a longing for a few animals and soon built a large aviary and was soon breeding rare coloured ring necked doves and black faced zebra finches
This was soon developed into breeding a few bantams and the vegetable area gave way to a pen and run for my first banties, a trio of Gold Sebrights, but I was not happy with them and over the years I tried various other breeds with some success in the breeding pens and with the eggs at our local agricultural show winning a few times over the years, I bred some nice Light Brahmas, pencilled Hamburghs, Light and Speckled Sussex, Araucanas, rumples game and mottled Leghorns over the years but my real love is Marans and Welsummers for the eggs and some pretty Dutch bantams for pleasure.
So how did poultry photography become part of my life? Well I have worked in the family business most of my life, 12 hour days six days a week starting off dressing chickens, then helping on our shellfish stall before taking over in 1991,I have served on several committees, a vice chair of the Coventry market traders, chairman of fillongley agricultural show and help fund raise for the R.N.L.I. and Royal national mission to deep sea fishermen as well as regular local radio spots over 15 years on a Friday morning, Rupert’s radio recipe, chicken and fish recipes, but to name a few of the things I did , as I approached 40 , I became aware I actually had no time for myself , so a massive change was needed .
I ordered a skip knocked down the aviaries, landscaped the garden, built a pergola, planted a wildlife area, put in two small ponds made dahlia areas and erected fences for plants to grow up, I also decided to get rid of most of my livestock, and reduce my charity work to just a few.
With all this done over a twelve-month period, I consulted littleacre products and bought three quality small bantam runs built a small aviary, erected four purpose built sheds and waited for it all to mature.
This has given me time to pursue my life long passion for photography, all be it in a small way, in the last few years what started as snapping a few pictures for Fancy Fowl at the national show with a small digital camera has built into a very pleasing pass time using a professional digital camera and photo stand , now being asked to travel around the country at weekends, taking photos of breeders and shows, meeting wonderful people along the way, especially my friends Rambling Richard Rowley, who has helped me immensely, teaching me about the different breeds, and how to pick a winner , Graham Hicks the waterfowl guru who has helped me on the duck and goose side of things and my good friend Dr Hans Schippers who has been invaluable in helping improve my techniques with the camera and teaching me how to select a good candidate for photographing, we correspond regularly by e-mail and meet to discuss poultry at some of the shows around the U.K. when he can fly in.
I have met so many nice poultry people over the years I cant name them all, but each person is unique and holds a real love for their chosen breed that can be clearly seen in their passion for their birds.
It gives me great pleasure to see my work in magazines and on the poultrykeeper web site , especially after you have waited all day for a particular shot of a bird, and I hope the fanciers like the photos too, judging by the response I receive, most people seem too.
I often see photos of people’s favourite bird, but inside cages, clipped heads or feet, over or under exposed. You only get the one chance of taking a photo to capture that special moment when you win, so may I offer a few tips: always ask to take the bird out of the cage, it looks so much better, try to get a good background, a large plain board, wall, cloth etc anything that gives a nice solid background that stops shadow from the flash, if you are not conversant with manual setting on your camera, put it on auto. But the best tip I can offer is use a tripod and BE PATIENT, it might take 30 minutes before the bird settles into the correct position for a photo, and try to frame your bird within the cameras view finder to avoid clipping the head and feet.
As for the rest of my time, I have an aviary and shed to breed my rare pied and ivory ring neck doves in, a few black faced zebra finches and my dahlia patch which is self 
watering, a real time saver every day of over 2 hours, and the ponds are fairly much self supporting too, the spring and autumn see me spend a lot of time in the garden planting, lifting and setting up the incubators and broodies, I don’t keep any large fowl cockerels due to the noise so I buy my eggs from Ken Nash of Marans fame, setting up my two small 18 egg Brinsea auto turn incubators , then run the chicks on in the floor area of one of the sheds , before moving them out into an empty run to mature after I dispose of the old hens , I do love to hatch a couple of sittings under broodies.
For anyone wanting to experience nature at its finest, just watch a broody hen teaching her chicks how to feed; you can spend all day in the garden just enjoying the scene.
After all that is done the rest of the time is now mine to take photographs!
I now work as a general assistant for a large furniture company , doing all sorts of jobs, and on weekends in the show season , i get to travel to various poultry and agricultural shows, where i can take photographs of winning birds, i must say over the years i have met many great people, who have helped me tremendously with my hobby, i now have progressed to a new Nikon D90 camera , laptop to view the photos instantly and a new proffessional studio stand backgrounds and lighting system , all with the advice of fellow poultry photographers , its really nice to work with other people from newspapers and magazines who share their advice and hard learnt lessons so freely, and that is why i always like to help others too.
Improving your poultry photos
So you have just won best in show or a top award at the poultry show, full of pride and justifiably so, you want a commemorative photograph of your prize bird and pull out your phone or handy camera and snap away.
ask to remove birds from cages,wire bars detract and obscure the bird
All seems great until you get home and view the pictures on your P.C when suddenly that magical moment is lost when you realise the head is cut off or the image is blurred and out of focus, not in frame, the bird is looking the wrong way, there’s a sign in the background or somebody’s face is peering through the bars on the other side of the cage. Even if you remove the bird from the cage, there can be shadows from people or objects nearby and a myriad of other things in the background to distract from the bird you want to capture.
- stand birds correctly,try not to crop feet and tails,watch for cage shadows
So how do you go about improving your photographs without a studio set up costing you a small mortgage? Well, with a little prior thought, a few basic bits of photographic equipment and some basic knowledge of photography you can suddenly change your photos from happy snaps to something you will cherish forever.
Start with your subject.
Lets start with your bird first, training at home to be steady will greatly improve your results, a nice steady bird is so much easier to photograph as it will feel comfortable and settled with all the fuss going on around it, but more importantly as it will feel settled, it will stand correctly as you gently put it into the right position for its breed requirements. Next, make sure its feet are clean, they really show up in the picture. Lastly (and I can’t emphasise this enough), give it time to settle down, some birds settle almost immediately , others take 10 minuets but most will eventually settle and allow you to take a much better picture than a stressed bird sat down or huddled in a corner.
A well trained bird will stand correctly, a solid plain wall will make a background but watch for shadow from the flash
Choice of Camera
Cameras come in a wide and varied choice from big to small, professional to telephone types, but even the most basic of cameras these days take reasonably good photos. Use the largest image size you can set on your camera (which corresponds to the largest number of pixels in the image) then set it to the ‘auto’ (automatic) setting which will take the hard work out of using the camera. Automatic mode will read the available information going into the camera and automatically adjust the settings to take the best photos it can with what it reads. This will allow you to concentrate on taking the photo at the right moment.
If your camera is not taking very good photos in the automatic mode, you could try putting it into manual and adjusting the settings. The biggest problem at typical poultry shows is the lack of light and this can be overcome by increasing the ISO or sensitivity to light and setting a slower shutter speed to allow more light in. Be careful though because if your bird moves (and some are constantly moving!) then the movement will show as a blur at slower shutter speeds. Try to hold your camera steady or rest it on something like the edge of the cage to stop camera shake causing a blur. Ask a friend to hold the door of the cage open for you. A flash can be used of course to light up your subject instead but a short range into a cage, can reflect back to give you a washed out image as well as upset your bird.
Background
Backgrounds will greatly improve your photos and for a modest outlay are possibly the best investment you can make. A graduated background card available from most good photographic stores for around £60 will really enhance your pictures. White to light blue seems to work best for most poultry, these give a lovely smooth look to the picture without hard lines or edges but most importantly , they remove features such as cage bars, brick walls, people and hard outlines.
- correct lighting and a photographic background can produce results like this
If you want you can just pin or clamp these background cards to a wall and support them on a portable table, investing in a portable studio stand depends on how serious you want to get or how much space the venue has to offer to take your photographs in, remember some venues do charge for stands and it is often their valuable trade stand space that pays towards hiring the venue.
Lighting
Lighting will greatly help your photos and there is an array of different light system available. Low energy constant lights mounted on stands will cover most situations and are the cheapest option available although you face the same problem with getting space to set them up at the venue with the added problem of finding electricity to power them. You will need to balance the lights so they don’t cast opposing shadows and always cast your light from above.
If you do not want to stretch to buying lights, much expense or equipment, then try and set up your photo near a window with the natural light coming in from behind you, fluorescent lights and canvas turn your photos yellow so try and adjust your camera settings to allow for the kind of lighting. Most modern cameras have a choice of light settings to compensate for this.
- a photographic stand,lights,background will vastly improve photos,
- improvisation will give you good pictures to keep
Lastly, most people with a digital camera have a computer to view the photos on so you can easily adjust your photos to remove unwanted areas, change brightness, contrast and a host of other things. Play with the photo package until you are satisfied with your adjustments.
- a well balanced photo after computer cropping and editing.
- shadow under bird,stance correct and full framed
With a little thought you can take that photo of a lifetime that will grace your wall forever or indeed you may even make front cover or get a show feature in your favourite poultry magazine!
Good Luck.