Bedford Infrared

 An occasional reader of this occasional blog complains that I never take any pictures in Bedford.  It's a fair comment, I don't.  So, on a sunny afternoon, I took the IR camera to Bedford for a walk beside the river.

Cambridge Street Photography

Last Saturday Ann organised a photohunt for CCC members in Cambridge.  Twelve cryptic photo clues led to 12 locations.  The idea was that you found the thing in the photo and either took your own photo of it or the area around it.  I decided to concentrate on street photography at each of the locations.  Some locations gave more opportunities that others.  I have posted a gallery featuring one shot from each location on the CCC website.  Here, I will just show a selection of my favourite shots of the day.

Note for posterity:  Under changes to the Covid19 regulations, this was the first weekend that it was mandatory to wear a face mask in shops.

It had been cloudy all day, and around 4pm the heavens opened.  But, as the old hill-walkers saying goes, 'there is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing'.  Luckily, I had the right clothing with me, and once I was suitably Goretex wrapped I managed to get my favourite shots of the day.

Butterflies At Waresley Wood

I recently took a trip to Waresley wood in search of butterflies.  I found good numbers, but not a great variety of species. My best find was a group of Peacock butterfly caterpillars munching on a patch of nettles.  They were tricky to photograph, but I love the back-lighting on this first shot.

Orchids

The other weekend I went out looking for orchids.  Here what I found.

 Bee orchid

 Pyramidal Orchid


















 



Common Spotted Orchid

Man Orchid (a little past its best)

 

Sunny Evening Infrared

These were taken on a sunny evening last week, in Riverside Park in St Neots.  I liked the way the light was coming through some of the trees, and there were plenty of, socially distanced, people around to add some interest. 

As an experiment, all of the images were adjusted and colour converted using DxO Photolab, instead of Lightroom and Photoshop.  I found that using the colour wheel in DxO for the colour swapping was a little easier and more controllable than the channel mixer in Photoshop.  At some point I will do a side by side comparison of the same image converted the two different ways to see which looks best.

 

Dragonflies at Paxton

All but one of these images were taken on one patch of brambles.  It was lit by the morning sun and a number of dragonflies were using it to warm up.

Top to bottom these are:
    a Broad Bodied Chaser,
    2 of the 4 Norfolk Hawkers I found,
    a Scarce Chaser Four-spotted Chaser (thanks Ann for putting me straight on my chasers),
    a Banded Demoiselle (found a short distance away from the others).

 

Return to Paxton Pits

With the slight easing of lockdown restrictions, I have started visiting Paxton Pits.  All of the hides are closed off, so I have been looking for insects.  On my first couple trips, I was mainly seeing small damselflies, but I did find a Scarce Four Spotted Chaser.