Bradgate Park
Bradgate Park is a deer and country park in Leicestershire. The deer park was established around 800 years ago and is home to some of Britain's finest red and fallow deer herds. Besides the deer Bradgate Park offers great landscape photography opportunities and the varied landscape in turn provides a great habitat for many other wildlife species including a wide variety of wildfowl on the River Lin as well as the occasional sightings of birds of prey.
At this great venue we are offering our Deer Rut Photography workshop during the season in October. And in 2025, we are offering for the first time our new Deer Rut Photography for Teenagers workshop here.
The Deer Rut Photography workshop (for adults) is an 8-hour workshop, where participants will have the chance to photograph red and fallow deer and its behaviour during the rutting season. In order to capture the deer at its most active time, the workshops will start at 7am and finish at 3:00pm. The maximum number of participants will remain at 4 photographer.
Your guide will be Barbara, a professional wildlife photographer, who dedicates her work to raise awareness for the situation of wildlife, including deer. She will be on hand throughout the day to help participants with setting up their cameras and providing one-to-one advice on any photographic aspects as well as on how to approach wildlife photography. Barbara will have been out at Bradgate Park, exploring the activities and the locations of different herds prior to your photography workshop. Through this, you will be able to see fallow and red deer herds and a mixture of different activities, including rutting related actions like stags bellowing, shuffling their antlers through vegetation, or clashing these with another stag or respectively buck (though as the deer is wild and nothing on our photography experiences is staged, we can’t guarantee any specific activities by the deer – and we are not stalking deer; this is really not necessary at Bradgate Park.)
As the uptake of our Deer Rut Photography workshop at Bradgate Park was relatively low in 2024, we decided to schedule only one date for this photography workshop type for now:
10 October 2025 (Friday) - fully booked
Further dates will be added if we get sufficient demand for the Deer Rut Photography workshop
Saying this we will introduce a Deer Rut Photography for Teenagers workshop (aged 12 - 16 years) at Bradgate Park in 2026. This will be 5 hours long (starting at 8am and finishing at 1pm). This photography experience will be open to 3 teenagers plus one guardian each. As this a new photography workshop, you can booked this photography workshop only with a 'Date to be confirmed'. We will publish photography workshop dates at Bradgate Park in November this year.
As with all our photography experiences, both Deer Rut Photography workshops (for adults and respectively for teenagers) will include the option of a 30-minutes online photography tuition session prior to the workshop day. This will allow us to tailor the tuition to the individual requirements of each participant, or respectively just discuss what to expect and bring on the day with participants.
The price for the Deer Rut Photography workshops at Bradgate Park (adults) is £143.50 per participant. This includes a contribution to the Bradgate Park Trust, guidance through the park, support with setting up the cameras and questions about any other photography aspect throughout the workshop plus the option to have a 30-minutes online tuition session prior to the photography workshop. Not included in the price is any catering or parking fees. There are two cafés/restaurants, where we can take breaks. However, as these are generally not next to where we will be with the deer in the park, we recommend, bringing a flask with a hot drink and maybe also some small snacks.
The price for the new Deer Rut Photography for Teenagers workshop is £174.50, which covers both the teenager and also the accompanying guardian (we do encourage the guardian to bring a camera and actively participating in the photography experience). As for the adult Deer Rut Photography workshop, the price includes a contribution to the Bradgate Park Trust, guidance through the park, support with setting up the cameras and questions about any other photography aspect throughout the workshop plus the option to have a 30-minutes online tuition session prior to the photography workshop. Not included in the price is any catering or parking fees. There are two cafés/restaurants, where we can take breaks. However, as these are generally not next to where we will be with the deer in the park, we recommend, bringing a flask with a hot drink and maybe also some small snacks.
Covered by the photography workshop fee for both our photography workshop types at Bradgate Park is that participants will become members of Big Cat & Nature Photography for one year and through this will have a range of benefits (having access to discounts when booking future events as well as to Hints & Tips articles in our Members’ Zone plus to our Members meeting)
For more details please visit our Membership page (by clicking on the highlighted term)
For more details on the Deer Rut Photography and the Deer Rut Photography for Teenagers workshops please click on the highlighted terms in this sentence. Alternatively, if you like to book your place on one of the Deer Rut Photography workshops, you can do so by completing the form at the end of this page.
Feedback from participants on previous Deer Rut Photography workshops:
By Elena Richards
"I had an amazing experience on the Deer Rut Photography Workshop with Barbara. She is incredibly knowledgeable and shared fascinating insights about both photography and deer behaviour. Barbara’s attentiveness truly made a difference, as she tailored the experience to my interests and provided personalised feedback throughout the day. I particularly enjoyed our conversations about wildlife; Barbara’s passion for nature and wildlife conservation made the experience even more rewarding. Overall, it was a fantastic day, and I can’t wait to return for another workshop!“
By Adrian Foster
"Visiting Bradgate Park with Barbara was my third excursion with her and each one has been a joy. She has the right balance of advice and guidance and her photographer's eye was helpful in pointing out potential shots and positioning. Highly enjoyable and highly recommended!"
By Tony Pay
" I had a great day at Bradgate Park taking photos of the Red and Fallow deer. There were plenty of opportunities to get reasonably close to the see safely. Barbara was always aware of the light conditions and where the sun was so our photos came out really well. A lovely day out in a small group."
By Jon Frost
"I recently spent the day in Bradgate Park with Barbara and a small group during the deer rut season and had the most incredible day. As an absolute beginner to photography Barbara talked me through some really useful basics and then helped me to capture images that I could never have dreamt of realising previously. The other 3 people in the group were far more experienced and also helped me and clearly learnt some new things from Barbara along the well. The real stars of the show of course were the deer and especially the stags! Having Barbara to guide us through the park to find the herds and advise how to approach meant we got incredibly close but always in a safe manner. A truly wonderful day and I would recommend anyone who has any interest in photography and wildlife to make the most of Barbaras knowledge."
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You can book your space/s on either of the Deer Rut Photography workshops at Bradgate Park by completing the form at the end of this page. Provided it is not indicated above that there are no or only a limited number of spaces available for the photography workshop date of your choice, you can proceed directly to the online shop via the Payment Link (shown in the Green Message Box that will come up once you have submitted the booking form) to pay either the deposit or the full fee from there (depending on when you book / the full fee is required when booking 4 weeks or less prior to the photography workshop date or when buying a gift voucher) For more details about the booking process, please check our Terms and Conditions.
If you are not sure about what date would suit you best, or you would like to get a space on the Deer Rut Photography workshop for a friend or family member, you can also buy a gift voucher and agree the photography workshop date at a later stage.
Please contact us via info@bigcatphotography.co.uk, if you have any questions.