Thursday, January 27, 2022

Night Sky Project

We are in the process of planning a Star Trails evening for CCC. Last night was the first clear night since the moon waned enough, so I ventured out at around 21.30 to see what my nearest sky-view point gave me. There was quite a bit of low cloud especially to the north so not ideal. The first five images are pointing South to South East, so towards Comberton and Cambridge. The star trail image is from a stack of 20 images (30 seconds each, F4, 16 mm equivalent focal length). The last image looks North - the Plough constellation is in the image but not the Pole star. Lessons learned - probably need c80-100 images, a clear sky and a wider lens if possible.

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Tate Britain - The Other Staircase

There seems to be very little written about Tate Britain's colorful staircase other than it is the work of David Tremlett who, in 2011, was asked to create a work for the entrance of the Manton Hall at Tate Britain titled 'Drawing for Free Thinking'. I greatly enjoyed photographing it both in wide view from various positions and some double exposures of the details.

 

Sunday, January 23, 2022

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

 

Friday, January 21, 2022

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.

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

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.

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

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.