The Eye of Sauron!

A couple of days ago I made a trip to Upton Warren nature reserve near Droitwich.  It’s a haven for birds, including Avocets.  There were some very obliging Reed Warblers that posed for my OM Systems 100-400m lens, but they won’t be featured here.  I was looking for non-typical nature reserve images.

The first is the Eye of Sauron in grass!  Whilst this looks like a small-scale Andy Goldsworthy work, it was completely natural.  Somehow the cobwebs have joined it into a cool eye shape.  Using my 100-400 enabled me to throw the background out of focus, and the bit of debris on the background leaf rendered nicely as the eye’s pupil.

I was with a friend, and we were talking about ICM.  The reeds in front of us were a perfect subject for ICM as they had lots of directional structure.  I moved the camera from top to bottom during the 1/30th sec exposure to accentuate this structure.  It’s now an impression of the reeds rather than a true representation.

There was a curved line of posts across part of the reserve, so I took a shot with my mobile.  It made an interesting shape, but the weed on the water and the sky reflection made it a bit too complex.  I used Snapseed to edit the image.  Converting to Black and White and increasing the contrast simplified it quite a lot.  A bit a cloning to tidy up some random black dots in the top left area simplified it even more.

I’ll be back there soon I’m sure.