Red Sea Shoot

After being home from my previous shoot for less than 1 hour and 12 minutes, I headed out to the Red Sea.

The quality of wildlife images and films continues to get better and better. As a young gun attempting to break into the industry, the more strings I can add to my bow, the better. Since graduating in Zoology from the University of Bristol in July, I have been filming and assisting world renowned big cat photographer, Steve Winter, on his next assignment for National Geographic Magazine. Whilst this has been an incredible experience and I cannot wait to go on our next trip, I have been missing something. 

My family is obsessed with the sea and so from an early age I was weaned onto a childhood of watersports. After spending countless hours bobbing up and down on a surfboard off of the Cornish coast, I guess it was no surprise that I found my passion for marine wildlife. As big cats generally tend not to like water, my assisting job has so far not taken me near the sea. So to get an underwater wildlife photography fix, I went on a ‘liveaboard’ hosted by Scuba Travel.

I owe a huge thank you to Scuba Travel for an incredible week and to Cameras Underwater, the biggest underwater photography retailer in the UK, for their continued support.

Holland Eagle Shoot

This week I spent a lot of time in a very cramped cold hide. Luckily I found that the RED's hard drive gets really hot when filming using pre-record. This function continuously records and then deletes a set time period (usually 3-10 seconds). When you hit the record button, it saves the previous time period- a very useful feature when you are waiting for something to happen, in my case, an eagle taking flight. Additionally, because the hard drive is working so hard, the heat from it makes a great little cheek warmer (scroll down)! 

Taunton Camera Club Talk

I had a great time talking to Taunton Camera Club last night! The audience was awesome and very politely laughed at all my crap jokes. If a wildlife talk might be something you'd be interested in, please find out more here...

http://www.bertiegregory.com/talks/

Timings and content are very flexible. My experience ranges 5 to 95-year-olds, 5 to 700 seater audiences, small classrooms to the Royal Geographic Society.

Not convinced? Here's a few reviews from the Taunton crowd...

'A wonderful combination of real Natural History knowledge, great presentational and storytelling skills and super images. I had no idea what to expect but I was knocked over!'

'What an inspiration to see someone so young grasping life by the scruff of the neck and living it. One of the best evenings we have had since joining the club.'

'Probably the most entertaining evening we have had at TCC, thoroghly enjoyable, a mix of youth, enthusiasm, knowledge and relaxed presentation.'

'Young Bertie was great; his personality and ambition were clearly behind his achievements. However, I would advise him to desist from admitting to “squealing like a girl".'

'Bertie was absolutely superb. Wonderful images and an entertaining presentation, and, only 21. I'm sure that he has a fantastic future ahead of him.'

'I really enjoyed listening to Bertie Gregory.  We have had some good speakers at Taunton Camera Club but this was a real highlight.'

Leopard Video Featured on the Nat Geo Instagram

A leopard video I shot over the summer is currently on the National Geographic Instagram feed. The video has just hit 155,000 likes! Scroll down this page to see it.

It's a very short clip from an amazing encounter we had with a female leopard feeding on a bushbuck (a medium sized antelope). The leopard was lit with a spotlight from another vehicle providing a nice orangey light against the electric blue sky.

My boss, Steve Winter, got some amazing stills so look out for them in his worldwide leopard story, published next year in National Geographic Magazine.

Coastal Kestrel

It was great to get out with the camera today after a long time behind the computer. I was treated to an amazing bird's-eye view of a male coastal kestrel as it hunted for rodents on the cliffside below me. Most of the time all I saw was its backside, but every now and again it looked over its shoulder up at me. Very special to see a classic farmland bird hunting over the waves!


Up close and personal with Great Crested Grebes

I’ve always had a fascination with great crested grebes; they are good looking, they have some amazing behaviours and their chicks are, in my mind, the cutest things on the planet. I have never really spent a significant period of time with this species. I recently travelled to Holland to set this straight. 

Great crested grebes are common throughout both Britain and Holland, so there are plenty of images of them. I wanted my images to be different. I decided that if I was going to have any chance at achieving this aim, I had to get both very low and very close.

I had to travel to Holland to photograph them as in order to get close and low, I had to get in the water. Obtaining permission to do this in the UK is difficult whereas, in Holland I had a location where it was acceptable. At first the grebes were tentative but soon became habituated to my presence. Each day I edged closer and this was the result...   Click to scroll