After 6 years and 720,000 attempts, photographer captures the perfect shot of kingfisher

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Even though it’s seen by many as the perfect job, to be a wildlife photographer takes more than passion and skills. It requires a bag of patience beyond imagination, and beyond every ‘perfect snap’ is definitely a huge amount of work and time spent!

Image credits Mercury Press

Alan McFadyen – a wildlife photographer since 2009, has recently explained just how much time took him to capture on camera the perfect shot of a kingfisher. Alan spent over 6 years; that’s more than 4,200 hours and took 720,000 frames until he managed to reach his goal – a perfect timing snap of a Kingfisher diving into the water without a single splash.

Image credits Mercury Press

“The photo I was going for, of the perfect dive, flawlessly straight, with no splash required not only me to be in the right place and get a fortunate shot but also for the bird itself to get it perfect,” McFadyen told The Herald Scotland. “I would often go and take 600 pictures in a session, and not a single one of them be any good. However, looking back on the thousands and thousands of photos I have taken to get this one image, it makes me realize just how much work I have done to get it.”

Image credits Mercury Press

The 46-year-old Scotland-based photographer said it was his grandfather who took him to observe the kingfishers near Kirkcudbrigh. It happened 40 years ago, when Allan was a little kid. But since then, he just fell in love with the bright plumage birds.

Image credits Mercury Press

“I remember my grandfather taking me to see the kingfisher nest and I just remember being completely blown away by how magnificent the birds are,” Allan said. “I’m sure my grandfather would have loved it, I just wish he could have seen it.”

Image credits Mercury Press

The photographer used to visit the kingfishers nesting spot about twice a day, around 100 days a year. Every session he usually took over 600 snaps with many of them being useless.

h/t: heraldscotland | photographyhides.co.uk

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