Wildlife photographer’s 5-year-old son gets first picture published in magazine

An incredible wildlife photographer from Cornwall is training the next generation of photographers – teaching his children how to get amazing animal photos. Few photographers are as devoted as 41-year-old Martin Yelland, who will go to great lengths to get the perfect shot.

Over the years, he has swum with seals, disguised himself as a puffin, and waited hours and hours to capture rare moments between the illusive creatures – including the dance between courting kingfishers. Martin said he still gets the same interest from wildlife photography as he did when he started eight years ago – and now he wants to pass that on to the next generation.

Martin, a postman from St Erth, trained his two sons, Ruan, five, and Noah, seven, teaching them about bird watching and how to operate a camera. Now Martin’s son, who is just five years old, has had his first picture published in a magazine.

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Martin said: “I think this is my eighth year in wildlife photography. I still get the same buzz as when I started. We used to do loads of bodyboarding and still occasionally go into the sea.

“My boys are keen birders and my five-year-old recently took his first photo of a woodpecker in a magazine, which is quite exciting.”

Last May, Martin disguised himself as a puffin to take stunning photos of the birds in their natural habitat, wearing a decoy puffin on his head. Then, in September, he donned his scuba suit to stalk a group of seals playing beneath the waves.

In 2021, he had a once-in-a-lifetime experience when an inquisitive blue shark decided to swim close to him for over an hour during a snorkelling trip off Penzance.

In March this year, he took stunning pictures of two great anglers in an intimate courtship moment. But this summer, the animals in the forest caught his attention.

He said: “The badger and the fox were on my friend’s land on a forest path. I used a motion sensor digital camera and a low power flash and it’s amazing what I was capturing.

“The two otters are my attraction! We do not feed wild animals, they are 100% natural images. Sometimes you go months without catching anything and other nights you get otters, badgers and foxes all within minutes of each other. .

“It’s such a rewarding feeling when you get some good footage that just shows wildlife acting naturally, and the variety still amazes me. You just don’t know what might come up.

“The puffins are from a recent trip to Skomer Island in West Wales, which is an absolutely stunning place.”

More of Martin’s incredible photos can be seen on his Instagram account or on Chough.rock.