The third feature in our new Gallery series where we let the photos tell the story… This week, Nick and Caroline turn on the cute factor with a look at Grey Seals.

The Grey Seal (Halichoerus grypus) are a large seal species that lives all around the UK coastline. In fact, over half of the worlds populations calls these waters home. Some colonies have become meccas for diving, like Lundy, The Farne Islands and Puffin Island (North Wales), as the young seals sometimes show a keen interest in diving groups and will come up, pull on fins and even pose for a selfie. It is an incredible experience and once we try to make sure we do at least once a year.

The key to success with close encounters, and therefore, great photo opportunities, is to act cool! Do not chase after the seals, as they will just zoom off into the kelp. If you wait near a gully, or near the surface where they haul out of the water, soon the younger, paler, smaller seals will be too curious and have to come and take a closer look at you. With a bit of patience, you can soon be playing tug of war with your camera, having your camera housing “mouthed” and your fins pulled. This is the time to head up to the shallows and get some natural light shining on your subject and keep shooting until your fingers are too cold to shoot anymore. There are very few dives anywhere in the world where you can have this much fun!

For more from Nick and Caroline, visit www.frogfishphotography.com

If you plan to photograph seals then remember, they are fast moving so you need to have a fairly quick shutter speed. As we shoot them in the UK, sometimes it can be in poor visibility or in darker waters, so set the ISO up a bit and your strobes down a bit. As we always shoot them with fisheye lenses we tend to have our aperture set in the f/8 to f/16 range to give a good depth of field.