UV Fluorescence in Lichens

I collected some different lichens during a conservation morning at Paxton Pits and photographed them with a macro lens using a UV torch. The UV light is absorbed into the subject and visible light is re-emitted at different wavelengths giving beautiful colours for with Xanthoria parietina (white light images on the right to compare) . The last two lichens (Usnea species and ?genus) did not fluoresce

 

Misty Trees

Here is a series of misty tree images taken last week near my home in Cambridgeshire converted to monochrome. They are a mixture of Ash and Willows. I tried some double exposures but I think these work bet with simpler tree shapes.

UV Fluorescence in Toft Churchyard

Having discovered that lichens fluoresced strongly in UV light, I decided to try some night shots at the church illuminating the gravestones with a UV torch. The exposure were 40 secs at f7.1 iso1250/2500 when the church security light were off. There is a street light a little way down the road giving some illumination to the scene. Artifical flowers fluoresce very strongly.

Sunny Morning at Paxton Pits

After a frosty start, the sun yesterday was pleasantly warming. The Black-headed Gulls entertained us collecting food from the surface of the water together with diving cormorants and lots of ducks. A couple of habitat shots (with Great White Egret) and two 'signs' of Spring - Cormorant with nesting material and a Honey Bee.

Preliminary Ultraviolet Photographs

I have been playing around with UV Fluorescence photography using a UV torch. The UV light is absorbed into the subject and visible light is re-emitted and can be captured by the camera. I was handholding the camera and using shallow depth of field so the results are not that sharp. 

Sunrise in Toft

Beautiful sunrise this morning for my walk across Home Meadow and the Bourn Brook Meadow  onto the Meridian Golf course. Very pleased to see Reed Buntings still present (plus Dunnocks) - when I first came to Toft, before the golf course was built, there was a big roost of Reed Buntings in the rough land alongside the Brook and then functional Oxford-Cambridge railways. But then every field also had its Corn Bunting and the woodland along the railway had a good population of Turtle Doves - 2 species unfortunately now very rare in the UK.