Photographer Takes Perfect Picture of Diving Kingfisher in Honour of his Grandfather

A photographer (Alan McFadyen) who used to watch kingfishers from his childhood with his grandfather spent 6 years and took 720,000 photos trying to get the perfect shot of the bird in memory of his late relative. The 46 years old photographer, taken by his grandfather Robert Murray to see the kingfisher nesting spot at the stunning lakeside location near Kirkcudbright, Scotland, somewhere 40 years ago. As the time passes, he grew up and he always remembering his past days, and then one day, he decided to start photography, and taking hundreds of photos per day trying to capture a kingfisher’s flawless dive. Hence, the kingfisher nest was flooded each year by the tidal water, and he dug a hole in the bank and filled it with clay to make a more sustainable nest for the birds.

He spent normally 100 days a year in his home location, and trying to capture kingfishers as they dived into the lake. He clocked over 4,200 hours and took around 720,000 photos before he got the perfect shot of the kingfisher doing a perfect dive into the water, without even a splash. There’re very few person in the world, who actually can take such type of photograph, because Kingfishers dive so quickly just like a bullets to taking a good image requires lot of luck and patience. The current photos are perfect dive, flawlessly straight, with no splash required be in the right place and get a very lucky shot but also for the bird itself to get it perfect.

Normally I take more than 600 shots in a session, and only one or two shots are good enough. I have taken thousands of thousands of photographs to get this one image. It makes me really glad how much work I have to get it. Many times I got disappointed not able to take perfect picture, but i never really stopped to think about how long it was taking along the way as I enjoyed doing it but now I look back on it I'm really proud of the picture and the work I put in. His grandfather has died in 1994 and I’m sure my grandfather would have loved it, I wish he could have seen it. I felt very proud as my grandfather brought me up as if he was my dad, so it really meant a lot. It was extraordinary how quick they flashed into the water with their brilliant blue colors and they didn't look real, they were like a bullet they were so quick. I have already started taking my eight-year-old son Leighton along with me and he spotted a kingfisher for the first time just last week so my dream is for him to take it up too.