May 06, 2025

May the Focus Be With You: Photography Inspiration, Tips & Ideas for May

Speckled Wood, 1/4000 f3.5 ISO 320

May is here and, with it, comes two bank holiday weekends, a host of activities to take part in with an abundance of light, plants, cultural events, and wildlife to explore.

The weather is generally much nicer at this time of year, so you can theoretically be more impulsive and not have to dig out your wellies and waterproofs before you head off with your camera!

Focus of the month: Sticking to your plans

Last month’s focus was all about planning your photography for the coming months, but now is the time to make sure you don’t get distracted from those plans. It is an exciting time of year, with photogenic fledglings, blooming meadows and a whole raft of social events competing for your attention, but the trick is to do a few things well rather than attempting to capture everything and not giving the subjects the time or effort that they deserve.

Concentrate on the areas you highlighted last month and dedicate yourself to creating the best possible photography on those areas when you are out and about during May.

Look out for fun, out of the ordinary local events to document. 1/250 f4 ISO 100

Creature of the month: Orange-tip butterfly

1.320 f2.8 ISO 3200

Be quick, because sightings of the orange-tip butterfly are likely to reach their peak soon and this is a beautiful species to capture in portrait form or with action shots as they flit around the garlic mustard and cuckooflowers.

They are usually territorial beasts, visiting the same borders. If you’ve seen them somewhere previously, you can be fairly certain they will turn up again. Another tip is to find a female (without the orange tip) because, as is the way in spring, the male will be along soon enough. If you want the best opportunity for portrait photography, wait until evening when they are less flighty and you have more time to compose your shot.

Photography tip of the month: Less is more

1/2500 f2.8 ISO 100

From composition to the final edit, less is more in all areas of photography. It is tempting to fill your photographs with everything you see, but the more you take out, the clearer your vision and storytelling becomes.

Think about your composition and look at how many elements there are in the frame. Any more than five or six and there is likely to be too much information in there and it will be too much effort for your viewers to understand your vision.

Don’t forget to think as much about what is happening around the edges of your image. You should consider this as much as you would what is happening in the centre so that you don’t distract the viewer’s eye.

It is also important to use this approach to editing. For example, if you have two photographs that are similar to each other, you should leave one out in the edit or you will diminish the impact of the other. In addition, it is easy to over-hype, over-contrast or over-saturate your images and not realise until you look back. One tip here is to nudge these edits incrementally, rather than go full on. Otherwise, when you reset them, your original image will look dull in comparison, making you believe you need to add more than you really do.

Inspiration of the month: Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story

This beautiful film about an orphaned wild otter named Molly and her human rescuer, Billy Mail takes place on Shetland and is expertly directed by the National Geographic photographer Charlie Hamilton James. It’s received a host of award nominations and deservedly so! Well worth a watch.

Walk of the month: Fantastic (Mini) Beasts & how to photograph them (Shoot-Edit-Print Workshop)

Review of the month:

“Myself and my Dad had a great 1/2 day lesson with Rich, he tailored the information well to each of us, despite us having completely different cameras and different levels of experience! We both learnt so much and thoroughly enjoyed the session, we would highly recommend Rich to anyone!” Gemma