The Art of Photographing Fairies 

                                             By Andy Duroe

At age of 30 I awoke one day and decided to change my life, I went to a local jewelers and bought a gold pocket watch, on the back I made the inscription "happy retirement love from the Fairies". When I returned home I packed up some clothes, my guitar and after 30 years living and working in one town, I set off on an amazing journey that was to change my perspective on life for ever.

My first port of call was Glastonbury in south England, it was here that I first met Esmeralder Ersalot. She offered to school me in the art of making Fairy pictures, and taught me how to make a "spider web pin hole camera". She also taught me the virtues of staying sober and not smoking cigarette in the presence of our little friends.
After a few months of following Ezy (as her friends call her) I found out by accident that she was a "Banter Hag". Banter Hag's are a bit like Wrath Witches, after leaving their human form to become fully fledged Witches they never quite made the grade, and are now fated to live a half life in eternal limbo. I quickly realized that most off what Ezy had taught me was a load of "poppycock". Some poor students have been seduced by Banter Hags and waisted their entire life learning nothing but "colly wobble"
As a rule most Fairies don't really like smoke or alcohol but some actually do like it, especially the more playful mischievous types, and Gnomes and Leprechauns. Some particularly chatty Leprechauns will chat all day to passersby should they have a twist of tobacco or a flagon of Ale, but to be sure as soon as the goodies are finished they will make a polite excuse and disappear. Some not so fortunate travelers have spent days in ernist conference with the "little folk" only to return home wearing nothing but there shoes!
As for cameras I have found that most cameras are suitable for taking Fairy photos and it depends on what type of effect you are looking for. Personally I use a Fuji film Fine pix digital camera for most of my work. It's really light and can fit easily into my pocket. It also is very quiet and simple to use, and takes exalent pics in half light without a "Flash". Spider-web pin hole cameras ,to my surprise do actually work, but they are unpredictable and make strange fuzzy pictures. If you are after this arty effect then this is the way to go. But personally if I get the once in a life time chance to snap a pic of some extremely rare elfinalia I would prefer to be professionally equipped and get a good clear picture of what I'm looking at. Normal roll film cameras are ok, but they are a bit loud to operate, also most Fairy's give off weird spectrums of light and maybe a whole roll of film could turn out to be just blotches of light instead of clear pictures, digital cameras are not so susceptible to this effect.
Fig 1 digital cam
Fig 1 roll film cam
Fig 1 pinhole cam
The biggest problem to produce quality Fairy photos is lighting, luckily most Fairies radiate light from their bodies and no flash is needed. But then again some do not , especially water Faerie's who live in total darkness. Besides only coming out at night, most water Fairies"bodies "are made up of unstable some times toxic gasses, and when exposed to bright light (especially camera flashes) they tend to explode. To be splatted by Fairy juice (Putter)is not a very pleasant experience I can tell you. Beside the awful costic smell. Fairy splattering's can also cause servier lip, eyes and nose rashes.
Whenever I am working with particularly unstable fairies' I normally carry a bottle of "tee tree oil", this works well for treating small rashes and pilts infections.
  The best time to photograph "dark" Faerie's is at full moon, normally 
 I stick a small mirror on the top of my camera, this can reflect just
 enough natural light to serve your purpose. Also small birthday
 cake candles can be quite effective.
Now you have your wellington boots, wax jacket and camera to hand the next and most arduous task is actually finding Fairies, please see the section " the art of finding Fairies" on the navigation bar.
Effect from Fairy "putter"