Horsey Gap Seal Colony.
I took a day trip to Norfolk to photograph baby seals, in the annual Grey seal pup season. Having viewed countless YouTube videos, and read numerous blogs I prepared myself for the worst. Huge crowds, lots of noise and just a few individual seals. Having left home at around 6am, we arrived easily following Google maps, at the Horsey Gap Beach To complete silence I’m not a soul in sight we park the car paid for parking which totalled somewhere around £4 for the day and began to walk up the sand dunes Following signposted walkways. As we reached the top of the dunes we were immediately greeted with the spectacular sight of hundreds of seals up and down the beach.
In a couple of the videos it mentioned that the area is maintained by a group of volunteers known as the friends of horsey seals. Several designated walkways had been set up on top of the dunes for the safety of both the human visitors and the seals. This created an absolute mammoth challenge for me. When it comes to perspective, its always best to be lower than the animal you wish to highlight. Adopting this method is the easiest way to ensure you get striking imaged which is incredibly important in wildlife photography and filmmaking. Without being able to have a lower level and low horizon line I found myself having to adapt using longer lenses and focusing across the sand to create the illusion of a lower camera position, but it was very difficult to isolate subjects in this manner.
Approximately half an hour after we arrived a few early volunteers began to appear walking up and down the walkway with wooden boards checking for any Seals that may have wandered up onto the public areas during the night.
As we continue to observe the seals our attention is drawn to a very young pup struggling in the shallows but determined to make it across the beach from what we could gather it has become separated from its mother and was determined to find her again but as it cross to the beach numerous adults would chase it away or even bite it It was compelling to watch but also morally very difficult to remain distant and disconnect yourself from the animal and focus on documenting the moment. This was my first real challenge as a wildlife filmmaker where I had been put in the position and forced to let Nature take it’s course. My hopes that after we left the seal pup and it’s mother were reunited once again However a quick photo on my mind and look at some of the less populated areas of the beach revealed the unfortunate truth, that many of the seals born this season will never make it off the beach.