Warm Temperatures and Wildflowers

Our recent high temperatures (16 degrees yesterday ) are having an effect on the flowering plants including many of the wild species in my garden. I record every year what is out in my garden on March 21st and spring has certainly been getting earlier and earlier. This year, flowering is also extending into the late autumn. There were hoverflies around today and even some active greenfly on some plants.

Infrared Tales (Tails?) of Toft

However long you (ewe) wait, there is always one that will not face the camera!. These sheep in the field next to our bungalow are always inquisitive if you stand at the gate. Images taken with my SonyRX100-converted camera - no great clarity but I do like the other world feel to the images. The These are RAW files with no profile or colour changes made - just adjustment to 'Tone' and 'Presence' sliders in the Camera Raw panels of Lightroom. I think this would only work on a very dull day.

Lichens and Fungi in Toft Wood

 I am just coming to completion of a book I have been working on for some months to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the planting of our local Toft Wood. As well as receiving lots of interesting contributions for people in the village and further afield, I have tried to document its more obvious wildlife. I hadn't enough suitable lichen images so, in one of the bright intervals, I wandered down to the wood and captured the amazing world of the lichens there. Afraid I don't know the species   I was pleased to also find four impressive fungi not previously recorded, Wood Blewits, White Saddle, Laccaria laccata and Crepidotus spp.  

Experimenting with Lighting

You can tell we are back in lockdown when I start looking for photographic projects. I decided to photograph vegetables with chiaroscuro lighting using off-camera flash diffused through tissue paper. The first six are my favourites.

Death of a Tree

This massive oak tree in Hardwick Wood had final succumbed to high winds and fallen but all around it life goes on especially the fungi. A few Wood Blewits and lots of very large Trooping Funnels (Clitocybe geotropa) along with various bracket type species and a small puffball

Using OM Olympus Lens in a Misty Wood

I took my legacy Olympus 50mm 1.8 lens for an outing into Toft wood on a gentle misty morning and was pleased with the gentle colours and interesting backgrounds that it produced.