Creative Flooding

The Riverside Park was flooded again last weekend.  The third or fourth time this winter.  Like lock-downs or corporate re-brandings, I soon loose count at the the first couple.  Lacking the fog of the last one, I decided to try and be a little creative, with in-camera double exposure and and intentional camera movement.

Cow Parsley at Coe Fen

I am in the process of catching up with pictures I shot during my week off, last week.  These were taken on the meadowland of Coe Fen in Cambridge, which is thick with cow parsley at this time of year.  A day of rain, had given way to a beautiful sunny evening.  I wanted to accentuate a dreamy feel, so chose to use my lensbaby.

Samba Band

On Saturday I went to the Mill Road Winter Fair in Cambridge.  As much as I enjoy street photography, when big crowds are involved, I often struggle to find good images.  It can be difficult to separate individuals from the numbers that surround them.  This time was no exception, and I had taken very few shots before I encountered the Samba band.  After watching them for a while, and taking a few straight pictures, I felt my images weren't successfully capturing the vibrance and mood of their performance.  So I chose instead to take some intentionally blurred images.  These I feel better capture the spirit of the performance.

 

Ghosts of Winter

The March snows, that covered the much of the country last weekend, reached as far as St Neots.  Although nothing compared with the north-west we did have a couple of centimetres worth.  I had intended to get some shots of spring flowers in the snow.  But the all the cold weather has delayed most spring blooms and the few that were out were buried.  A new plan was needed. 

I took inspiration from images that Sue had shown in a recent club talk, featuring intentional camera blur.  The churchyard of St Mary's Church in Eaton Socon made a suitable subject.  The brightness of the snow required a minimum aperture and a polariser to give me workable shutter times of an eighth to a tenth of a second.  Just enough to move the camera a little during exposure.   The technique is very hit and miss, but after a few hundred shots I ended up with some I quite like.  The ghostly feel of these shots conveys to me the mood of the day and location.