Whirlpool

Haiku: Whirlpool

The close of the day
Soft pillows embracing sore heads
Whirlpool dreams ensue

Bring Me Sunshine

Festival of Flowers: Week 12
Sunflower

Bugging Me

So I’m actually really tolerant of most invertebrates. There’s only one that I really hate and that’s the mosquito. Nothing could ever persuade me to photograph a mosquito!

There are, however, a few that just creep me out! Here are two of them, the Rose Sawfly larvae and the Flesh Fly.

We’ve got a dreadful infestation of Sawfly in our communal gardens and they’re wrecking my beautiful roses. They’ve been sprayed several times with no discernible effect. I’ve been out squishing larvae and adults everyday, but still they multiply! Help!

I can stand to look at the adult Flesh Fly, they’re really quite pretty, the larvae though, gross!

Pure

Wordless Wednesday: Pure

Double Vision

After our adventures in Shropshire, I’ve been exhausted today!

Chronic fatigue has not completely beaten me though, in fact it inspired me to create an image representing just how hard it is to keep your eyes open when your lids feel like heavy weights and your vision is blurred.

The Long View

We came home today from Shropshire and as it was such a beautiful day we drove over the hills that overlook the cottage where Simon’s mum lives.

This is The Long Mynd and the views really are spectacular!

I’d like to add that this evening Simon’s daughter, Charlotte, gave birth to her second child, a little boy called Matthew Paul. Congratulations to you Charlotte, partner Danny and big brother Callum 🙂

Welcome to the World, Matthew! This is some of the awe-inspiring beauty that awaits you.

Buzzed

I wondered why everything had gone a bit quiet amongst the garden birds this afternoon, then I looked up…..

Buzzard!

Peewit, peewit, peewit………..

I’m in Shropshire this weekend enjoying the peace, quiet and beautiful nature.

We’re visiting Simon’s mum. Just like me, she has a love of nature and wildlife. Today we went along to Venus Pool to see what birdlife and butterflies might be visiting the lake.

These lovely birds are Lapwings. As a child I always called them by their other name, Peewit, which comes from the sound they make.

The flock were all on the far side of the lake but fortunately they took to the air, briefly, and I was able to get a few photos of them.

I’ve never had a chance to photograph them before, so very much wanted to share a childhood dream brought to life with you.

Focus

Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus
Festival of Flowers: Week 11

This week the photo challenge is all about how aperture and depth of field affect the areas of focus within an image.

Depth of field can also be altered by how close you are to your subject. Today I stuck to photographing one flower, a chrysanthemum, using my 30mm macro lens at f2.8 and manually changing the focal point to show you the different effects.

Being very close to my subject, as well as having a wide aperture, gives me a very shallow depth of field. Changing my focal point from the centre of the flower to the edge of the petal makes a dramatic change to how the subject is viewed.

Which do you prefer?

Gold Star

I would like to award this Gold Star to all my fabulous followers 🙂