High-Contrast Flowers; Homage to Georgia O'Keeffe

With the very bright sunny conditions yesterday morning, I decided to go for high-contrast images (the Classic Chrome profile in the Raw converter for the Fuji XT cameras is ideal for this). I have always liked the flower studies of Georgia O'Keeffe as well as some of her quotes “Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”

Through a Glasshouse Window

The plan for the morning at Cambridge Botanic Gardens was to practise macro shots in preparation for the spring and summer blooms and insects but I got diverted by the glasshouse windows and ended up with a set of images that asked to be collaged into a panel. Have added a few of the individual images to show the intriguing abstracts created by condensation, leaves and algae.

Bee Identification

I knew that identifying Britain's bees was not going to be easy but it is certainly proving quite a puzzle as many species are very similar and  there is much variation within each species. There are 24 species of bumblebees, around 225 species of solitary bee and just a single honeybee species in Britain. Just to confuse things further the last image is a bee-mimicking Hoverfly!!

Cambridge Camera Club Exhibition

It is that time of year again - the CCC Exhibition is on until Saturday (10 - 5pm) at St Andrews Baptist Church. Free Entry. There is the adjacent Stoneyard Cafe for coffee, tea or lunches so do come and visit if you are free. Images from last night's Opening.

Pasque Flowers 5: Bluebells 10

Barry joined me on my annual pilgrimage to Therfield Heath for the Pasque flowers and Gamlingay Woods for the Bluebells and other Spring flowers. There is a reasonable display of Pasque flowers this year with some already over and some still to come out - the snails are munching their way through quite a lot of them. The Bluebells and Oxlips are at their best at the moment and a very good year. 

Bee flies, Bees and Fly

I spent a considerable time yesterday in my spinach patch practising insect photography with the 100-400mm +1.4 converter Fuji system (my lighterweight replace for the stolen canon gear). Certainly it can produce as good results in terms of focus and has the advantage of much less noise than the 7Dii. It is much slower to focus but possible with lots of practice. The first four images, one of my favourite dipteran species, the Bee fly, followed by several of the many Hymenoptera (bees) species visiting the leaves to warm up. Lastly two predators awaiting a meal - my constant Robin companion and a Hoverfly species that predates other insects.