Westonbirt, A tribute to Edith

For those who knew her, my mother, Edith Grady, died early Saturday morning at the age of 98. She loved Westonbirt and so I continued with a long-arranged weekend trip to see the autumn colours with Phil, Shelagh and Miles - thanks for your company. We were rewarded for getting there early by a beautiful misty morning with all the trees decked in dew drops. The leaves have gone from many of the trees but there were still some hanging on making wonderful backlit subjects.

Anglesey Abbey

We had a short visit to Anglesey Abbey yesterday in lovely autumn sunshine. The trees have not yet turned fully but I concentrated on the light through the leaves and the silver birch shapes.

If You Go Down to the Woods

All the wet and now mild weather has resulted in a bumper crop of fungi in the woods and fields. These were taken yesterday at Gamlingay Woods, Cambridgeshire. I will get them identified and add the species when time permits but thought this might encourage other fungi enthusiasts to get out in the woods this weekend.

Beechwoods Wandlebury

Last year I visited the beechwoods at Wandlebury around this time to photograph the White Helleborines and I wanted to try again this year with a different lens. Unfortunately they are not quite out and they are also very small this year, maybe because of the dry conditions. I spent time photography the trees both with my infrared camera and in colour. I converted the colour image to monochrome using maximum green channel to attempt a digital infrared. However, with these bright dappled conditions and the green treetrunks, the result is not very pleasing.

The image taken with the infrared camera is much more striking - the lichen on the bark does not emit as much infrared as the foliage so you get a good separation of trunks and leaves.

Interestingly, an autumn picture taken in the same location converts well to a infrared look alike by using full orange and yellow filtration in a Lightroom conversion to greyscale.

Images from Evesham

This morning was very frosty but clear with a very bright blue sky. The images here were taken a short walk from the Travelodge along the river so not quite from the window (defeated in trying to make interesting picture of the Little Chef outside my window). The river reflected the sky to give a lovely range of colours in the first image. The dead grasses produced more muted colours in the second image.The Canada Geese flew past while I was photographing a couple of hot air balloons.The predominant tree is the Alder and I thought it made an interesting backdrop for the Wood Pigeon.

More blurry trees

I think you may wonder what I am 'on' at the moment as this is a car park in Welwyn on a very wet dreary day yesterday.

Trees from the Travelodge

Looking out of the Stevenage Travelodge window at the snow falling when I arrived this afternoon, I liked the various colours of twigs in the garden. Used slow shutterspeed and zoom and was very surprised at the results. You can even see the snow flakes!

Strolling along

Another grey day so not a lot of images to add to the bank but liked this view - need to take out the mast that is showing above the bank

Still on Trees

I have been sorting through more of my infrared pictures of trees. These were taken with the 15mm fish eye in Epping Forest. They are 1/125 sec

so I don't think it is movement on the right of the first frame. I must check out whether images are in focus with this lens to the edge of the frames. I like the effect almost of a pinhole camera.

The second photo was of an amazing clump of trees where they had all anastamosed together to create these curious shapes.

That sunset at Wimpole

Here is another view taken at Wimpole when there was a heavy snowstorm just as the sun was setting.

Epping Trees

Still looking at some IR images - this one converted to monochrome gives a feel very reminiscent of IR film

Infrared at Wimpole

I took some images at Wimpole in the snow last week and have just started looking at them and experimenting with different workflows for converting to Monochrome.

The first pair show the original RAW image and its equivalent conversion to monochrome, adjusting the colour mix in Lightroom to produce the best contrast image.

The second pair use a profile made for the Infrared camera and then converting to monochrome in Lightroom (http://khromagery.com.au/ir_raw.html). I prefer the second conversion with the DNG profile

Madingley War Cemetery in the Snow

I decided to take a break from the decorating this morning and review some of the images I took after the recent snow. Here are four from the American War Cemetery.

I had to take the trees first as I love their curvy branches. It had snowed and there had also been freezing fog overnight so all the branches were covered in snow and ice.The frozen water was an almost pure cyan colour. The sky at this stage was grey as there was still high level fog. A little later the fog lifted and there were glimpses of the sun. I changed to the 15mm fish eye as I kn ow it will shoot direct into the sun with no appreciable flare.

The sky cleared for a time but the light was a pastel orange. This is my favourite (well so far!)

November 30th and still green

Photogaph taken in Cambridge on Monday - many of the trees still have green leaves.

Cambridge Willows

A couple of Infrared images from a dull day in Cambridge

The willows are still in leaf - this one reminded me of 'Dougal' from the Magic Roundabout

Leaning In

Looking back through some summer pictures, found this one that I took in an orchard in Norfolk with my infrared camera.

Warwickshire Wood

Monday morning was pretty foggy in Alcester where I am staying at present, so I visited a local wood but it didn't have the simple stands of trees that I was hoping for. However, I do like this image of the oak canopy. The mist thinned quite quickly so I concentrated on the fungi - there were lots in the very damp wood.

I took the Birch Polypores (left) and the Jews Ear (right) with the 70-200 mm  lens which has given soft backgrounds

Derwent Water Woods in Rain

The rain really set in before lunch on Saturday but a brief dry spell tempted us to a walk in these magical woods.

The top image was taken with a 16-35 mm rectilinear lens and the lower one with the 15mm fisheye.

The contrast, colour rendition (both images brought to 6500) and detail are better with the 15mm lens as I suppose is to be expected with a prime lens.

Autumn at Westonbirt

There were more visitors than trees at Westonbirt this afternoon. The Acers are probably just about at their best with a combination of greens, yellows and reds.

The image below was done by placing the camera on the ground with the fish-eye looking upward at the canopy. I used the timer facility but I had to move quite quickly to get out of the picture.

Norfolk Trees

A few tree shots taken around our holiday cottage in Plumstead Green near Holt Norfolk. So far not finding Aperture as flexible for doing infrared monochrome conversion as Lightroom. I will do some new conversions of these files on the pc when I return.