Mission Accomplished at Brandon

The only thing that I definitely offered for the RPS Workshop on fungi at Brandon  yesterday was over 30 years of visiting and hence a lot of knowledge of what species are found where and when. Brandon fulfilled this promise with lots of colourful and attractive species from the Porcelain fungi up on the beech branches to the colourful Mycena haematopus, Fly agarics and Amethyst Deceivers. We tried different lighting and experimental  techniques - some not yet quite mastered like the 'toadstool in the Bokeh'. We even found lots of Slime Mould -  though probably only one species.

Botanical Studies

Barry and Ken ran a very enjoyable workshop yesterday with Still-life as its theme and invited everyone to contribute some subjects - this resulted in a wonderful collection of vegetables, fruit, flowers, vases, memorabilia etc. I spent all afternoon photographing the different glass vases and bottles plus flowers that were contributed. Unfortunately, I managed to delete the folder of images before downloading but hope to retrieve at some stage. So here are my morning offerings using a lightbox and overhead lighting (continuous or flash), plus a bottle and hops with a light pad back illumination and a shell lit by studio flash. Hopefully my main project will rise from the ashes for later sharing

Silhouettes Workshop

Our Cambridge Camera Club Wednesday Workshop group are meeting in Toft People's Hall most of this season, partly because of its excellent facilities including some programmable colour spotlights, which we used last night to give some interesting silhouette compositions (helped along with Lightroom colour curve adjustments etc). Thanks Paul for running it and Martin for his help with the lighting etc

Wimpole Christmas Lights Trail

This is the first time Wimpole Hall (National Trust) has organised a Christmas Lights Trail. We visited on Sunday and came away with mixed feelings. It is certainly very bright and festive with lots of very clever modern technology both in light and sound. The main drawbacks were the very large number of visitors combined with the narrowness of the paths meant that there was a lot of queueing and you were too close to the exhibits (for people with sensitive eyes it was uncomfortable in many areas). For me, the best exhibits were the 'standard' coloured lighting of trees and features and the lighting of the Hall itself. 

More Fungi - Sheringham woods

Apologies for more toadstools but it is that time of year!! Here some taken in very mixed woodland (Beech, Conifer, Silver birch, Oak etc) near Sheringham. I was using an LED light that can be set to daylight temperature and gives a very natural look to the image - all with the Fuji compact camera (F16 in most cases). Next step best setting for focus stacking to give some detail in the surroundings but isolate the toadstool a bit more.