A Good Year for Bluebells

The Bluebells in the Cambridgeshire/Bedfordshire woods are very impressive this year. Here a few from recent visits - mostly taken with the Olympus legacy 50mm 1.8mm lens so manual focus only. I varied the aperture in some shots and really like the softness of focus and colour that this lens produces.. The last image is with a modern Fuji 80mm macro - the glass results in much more contrast and saturated colours.

Early Purple Orchids

A wonderful display of Early Purple Orchids in our local woods at the moment. A very difficult species to do justice to with its supersaturated colour and always ' messy' surroundings, especially as I prefer to have the flowers with enough detail in the background to show habitat. A very variable species in its colour and petal shape etc.

Annual Bluebell Walk

We visited Waresley wood on Monday to see how the Bluebells are doing this year. In one part of the wood they are fully out but there are other areas which will be at their best in a couple of weeks so another trip could be fitted in, hopefully in some kinder light. The bright sunshine gave difficult conditions but very enjoyable attempt!

Depth of Field in Depth of the Woods

It is always difficult to decide how much to have in focus in an image - obviously it depends on the reason for taking the shot. The first four were taken with the idea of a pictorial idea of a life in the woods (f 7.1 for the Shield Bug; f16 for the next two and f20 for the Morrell fungus). The last two images are focus stacked at 2.8 to give a simple background but maximum detail of the subject. By chance I have a wonderful uniformity of colour palette, which is probably the thing that most influences my reaction to an image.

Waresley Wood on a Misty Morning

Spring is certainly in full swing in Waresley and Gamlingay Woods now though the bluebells need another week or so to be fully out. The misty conditions in the morning were ideal for flower photography with water droplets adding interest to the images.

Bluebell Time at Waresley Woods, Cambs

The bluebells are extra good in the birch wood at Waresley this year. I chose a too bright afternoon to visit but enjoyed the smells and colours of the wood and trying a few soft focus views and camera rotations etc. They have sensibly deterred people from wandering in but there are plenty of viewpoints to try and record that illusive colour and shape.