Macro
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A bit of garden wildlife
You don’t have to go to exotic places to see fascinating wildlife. Sometimes it’s there in your own back garden/back yard. We have a wheelbarrow stored upside down in our garden. On lifting it recently my wife found these two Common toads (bufo bufo) side by side. We’ve seen individuals before, but two together was unusual. She called me over and I, of course, went and got my OM-1 camera with my OM System 60mm macro lens. A quick focus-stacked set and they were captured for posterity. Sweet! On a Scabious flower just yards away some real drama was playing out. The female Flower Crab spider had previously caught a…
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Spring has sprung
It’s nearly May, and here in leafy Worcester everything wild is going at a very rapid pace. The birds are singing like mad, and creatures like toads are well out of hibernation. I found this one perched on top of an old tree stump in the garden. The stump is covered by our wheelbarrow – upside down – and I’ve seen a toad on the tree stump before. I had my OM System 40-150 Pro lens fitted, which was perfect for an informal portrait. The eyes are good and sharp, which is an important thing in portrait photography. I’ve been experimenting with capturing small insects in flight. It’s really hard…
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60mm plus 30mm = 90mm
They say that “nature’s red in tooth and claw”. That indicates that everything is struggling to survive against lots of potential predators. I saw this little vignette happening outside one of our windows. A honey bee was caught in a spider’s web. The spider is probably a Noble False Widow, and it was just doing what spiders do to carry on living. I shot through the double glazing with my 60 mm OM macro lens. The background is well out of focus, as it was quite a long way away. Later the bee and spider were to be seen tucked up in the corner of the window, almost out of…
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March miscellany
Recently I travelled to Jersey for a few days to judge the photography section of the annual Jersey Arts and Crafts Eisteddfod. It was an honour to be chosen as Adjudicator, and I was well looked after by the organisers. I was kept very busy writing individual assessments for each image, so I didn’t have much chance to see the sights. I was able to pop out early one morning and visit the harbour in St Helier. One striking thing was the sculpture called “Jersey Girl” at Liberty Wharf. It’s by an artist called Rowan Gillespie, and was unveiled in 2010. Very cleverly she is suspended by cables from just…
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“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”
OK, so it’s now winter rather than Keats’ autumn, but the mists thing is still true. Tied in with mists there are other sorts of wetness, such as rain and condensation, and even melted frost. Yes, I know this is a tenous link for some water droplet images, but bear with me! It rained a week or so ago, and one sunny morning some lingering rain droplets were sat on a twig of one of our Japanese maple trees. I liked the way they were in a fairly regular line, and there were some fab reflections/refractions in each drop, so I popped my 60mm macro lens on to my OM…
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A midweek miscellany
Today’s post does not have a single theme. It’s a mixture of images, each of which has its own story to tell, each of which shows an area of my photographic interest. Here’s a shot from a town’s bonfire night celebrations last year. They had fire-eaters as a diversion before the main fireworks event. It was hard to get into a good place to have a clear view of the fire-eater, and also hard to choose the right moment to press the shutter. I was pleased with the flame on this one. A nice tight crop to the corner and editing out some background distractions made the composition work better.…
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Helios – and a sunflower
A few weeks ago we went to to Coventry to see the Helios art installation. To quote from the National Trust’s website, “Helios, a seven-metre sculpture of the Sun, has been created by artist, Luke Jerram. It’s been made from 400,000 photographs of the Sun’s surface and observations by NASA to replicate swirling solar winds and sunspots.” This installation was outside in the garden of Charterhouse, Coventry, and it was fascinating to see how people interacted with it. I used the wide-angle lens on my Pixel phone to get a good view of the differences between those who chose the sun and those who chose the shade. There’s a bit…
- Abstract, Architecture, Black & White, Bokeh, Composition, Creative Photography, Fine Art, ICM, Landscape, Macro, Mobile, Movement, Snapseed
Worcestershire Open Studios is nearly here!
The final preparation for this weekend’s opening of my exhibition as part of Worcestershire Open Studios (WoS) is pretty well done! Images are up, lights are installed and tested, mounted prints are in their display boxes, greetings cards are sorted, and signage is all done. Even the sun is getting in on the act and saying, “Here’s where you need to come to”! If you follow the directions that are found here, you should see a house like this one – only the right way up! There will be signs and green bunting to help you find it. This one of the key images in my exhibition. If you want…
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Sex and drugs and rock & roll.
OK, I accept that there is a distinct absence of drugs and rock & roll, but there’s definitely some sex. I was watering the garden a couple of days ago and saw a movement on the hose. Looking closer I realised it was a pair of mating Scarlet Tiger Moths. They get their name from their bright red underwings. I rushed off and set up my flash diffuser and macro lens, hoping they would still be there when I came back; they were. I had to lie on the ground in a quite uncomfortable position to get the shot, but we suffer for our art don’t we? I was able…
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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…