Good shot! The moment baby trout leaps from the water to catch flies buzzing overhead

By Anthony Bond


Most people can lay claim to having seen the occasional fish making a dramatic leap out of the water for food.

But rarely has the moment been captured in as extraordinary detail as these incredible pictures show.

These stunning images of a baby trout leaping from the water to catch flies were captured in just 10,000th of a second.

Incredible: This picture of a baby trout leaping from the water to catch flies was captured in just 10,000th of a second by photographer Kim Taylor

Using a purpose-built 3,500 volt flash and an infrared beam, wildlife photographer Kim Taylor managed to show what happens when you hear that ‘plop’ sound on rivers up and down the UK.

In a David Attenborough-esque piece of manipulation Mr Taylor has used an ingenious studio setup to replicate a moment almost impossible to witness in the wild.

He took an ordinary three-foot by three-foot fish tank and rigged up a sophisticated camera.

He meticulously trained the young fish - only three or four inches long - to leap from the tank using bait dangled above them.

Then when the fish got the hang of it, the talented photographer rigged up an infrared beam directed just under the unlucky bait.

On hand to capture the action was a Hasselblad Swedish film camera - the same as used by astronauts on the moon - ready to take his out-of-this-world images.

Wonderful: In a David Attenborough-esque piece of manipulation Kim Taylor used an ingenious studio setup to replicate a moment almost impossible to witness in the wild

Mr Taylor, 79, who runs his own studio called Warren Photographic, then took his images of the leaping trout and combined them with backdrops of a local stream - creating a stunning effect.

He said he wanted to be able to illustrate an event happening every day on Britain’s rivers, ponds and streams but which no one could ever see in such detail.

He said: 'The photograph of the young trout jumping for the dragonfly above the stream was actually taken in the studio and then combined with a photo of a local stream.

'The photograph with the lens part submerged was again an outside backdrop combined with a studio image, but the effect is something you can’t replicate in the wild.

Manipulation: Kim Taylor, 79, took his images of the leaping trout and combined them with backdrops of a local stream - creating a stunning effect

'Finally the shot from above the young trout is actually all in the studio and gives you an idea of surroundings we had to operate.'

The BBCs Frozen Planet’s footage of baby polar bears with their mother actually shot in a German zoo caused outrage last month.

But Mr Taylor insisted their is a place for manipulation in order to illustrate a behaviour simply not recordable in the wild.

He said: 'I think people in the know would have understood that you could not get those kind of shots in the wild.

'With these pictures I am trying to show a moment millions of us will have experienced when we hear a ‘plop’ sound in a river or stream, these pictures just show what happens in that moment.

'Because our eyes simply are not fast enough to be able to see it for ourselves, we usually just end up seeing the resulting ripples.'



source:dailymail