A Miniature Meadow

Time for some colour.  My friend Vic has a round flower bed in his drive, that he has turned into a miniature wild-flower meadow.

Belstone Tor

I was recently in Devon, visiting a friend, for a long weekend.  The weather was mixed, but we were able to get out for a few walks.  The biggest being a 10 mile loop on Dartmor.  We walked over a few Tors, but, photographically, all of the interest was near the start of the walk at Belstone Tor.  I opted to use the IR camera again, as I thought it would suit the conditions.  I was expecting the twisted tree, but the Dartmoor ponies were a surprise bonus.

Churchyard Infrared

It's been a while since I last used the IR camera.  So, I thought I would try a few shots in the churchyard of St Mary's in Eaton Socon.  To encourage wildlife, the grass around the graves had been left long, which made a soft counterpoint to the stones.  The early evening light also helped with some shadows.

Chasers And Damselflies

Not a huge amount of success on my first dragonfly and damselfly hunting trips to Paxton Pits.  I am fairly sure the dragons are Scarce Chasers.  I have no idea as to the damselfly species.  They all look the same to me.

Baby Bunnies

 Taken at Paxton Pits.  All together now...aww!

Cow-parsley, multiple exposure images

Photographing the cow-parsley, that blooms on the bank behind my house, has become an annual ritual.  Of course, if the subject doesn't change the approach to shooting it should.  This year I decided to try in-camera multiple exposure images.  I wanted to get something impressionistic and painterly, rather than totally abstract.  

One of the annoying things about the Olympus Om-D E-M1 is that its multiple exposure mode only allows two images to be combined.  It is possible to select that double image as the first image in a second double shot, and build up from there.  But, honestly, who can be bothered?  Instead it was back to the trusty old Canon 7D.  This has a lot more options regarding both the number of images that can be combined and the blending method.  The drawback of the 7D is the lack of electronic viewfinder, meaning I couldn't see the overlay of the previous shot(s).  I tried using the rear screen to compose, but the light was too strong to see properly, so in the end I just trusted to luck.

Each of these images is an 8-shot in-camera multiple exposure, combined in additive mode.  I made very slight movements between shots, whilst trying to focus on a single point.  I found that the least amount of movement gave me the look I was after. 

Isabella Plantation

Last weekend I was in London for my birthday.  The weather was not kind and most of my photographic plans were abandoned.  However, for a couple of hours on Saturday evening the sun broke through.  I headed to the Isabella Plantation, an enclosed woodland garden in Richmond Park.  The plantation is filled with Rhododendrons and Camellias, many of which were at their best.  The light was lovely, but I only had a short time available to me.  There was certainly no time to bother with a tripod and there was just enough breeze to make image stacking a waste of time.  So all the images are hand-held single shots at fairly wide aperture.