September 2017

September Mornings

September has been a fairly unproductive month for me as I seem be be going out and not taking many pictures. I have been spending a lot of time exploring new locations, which can be time consuming and often fruitless. The dark overcast mornings later in the month also did not help me, as by the time it got light enough to shoot I had to leave to go to work. That said I did have a handful of mornings when the conditions were very nice. Signs of the approaching autumn has been present all month, so lets hope it is going to be a good one.

If you are passing by, I have a picture hanging up in the Ashridge visitor centre this weekend. The image has been shortlisted in their Tree-mendous Weekend competition. The winner of the competition will be announced on Sunday. The voting is all done by the public, so any votes for my image will be much appreciated.

Finally just a quick mention about this exhibition in Watlington, that I am taking part in next weekend. The exhibition is open Saturday 10am – 5pm and Sunday 11am – 3pm.

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My Flickr Favourites from August 2017

MY THREE FAVOURITE PICTURES BY OTHER
PHOTOGRAPHERS August 2017.

Here are my chosen three images from other photographers that were taken in August.
Like before, my chosen images will be put together in a gallery on Flickr along with all the previous ones. Or you can read all of my other previous Flickr fave posts here.

Wheelstones by Matt Oliver

Wheelstones.

I have seen a abundance of heather pictures this year and to me most of them look rather similar. What I particularly like about this one from Matt is that it is a little understated. The colour of the heather is very natural, and where it has gone over in some places makes it look more interesting. I also like that fact the sky is not a overpowering sunrise or sunset. Matt is very good at these vertical compositions, that lead your eyes perfectly up the frame.

 

The Last Stand by William Dore

The Last Stand

A rather moody image from William, but it is right up my street. On Twitter there was a few suggestions of alternative crops, but I agree with William that this one works best.

 Sunrise by Steve PalmerSunrise

Another choice of moody image, this time from Steve. I just like the simplicity and the fact that it could have been taken anywhere.

Well done Matt, William and Steve.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Here is this months list of photographers that also deserve a mention. Click on the names to see their images. Dave Fieldhouse, Matt Garbutt, Matthew Dartford, Sarah Brooks and Edd Allen

August 2017

Projects, Dorset, and a few Misty Mornings.

August like the rest of the year seems to have flown by. The month started out with me completing my ‘Entangled’ project and working on another similar project called ‘Yellow’. ‘Yellow’ focused on a field of sunflowers, but concentrated on individual flowers in various stages of the flowers blooming. I really enjoyed working on these projects and it made me wonder if this should be something I should do more of. These projects also got me using my Hasselblad a bit more, which has to be a good thing.

I did managed to spend a bit more time exploring some new locations. For me the summer months are perfect for exploring, as the light mornings allows me about 2 hours before I start work. Being warmer also makes it a more pleasant experience. All this exploring does not really produce lots of pictures that I want to share, but hopefully the time was well spent and should provide some nice new images later in the year. As much as I like returning to my favourite places, a new location really does motivate me to get out there and try and capture something new.

I spent a nice week in the Isle of Purbeck with my family again. We visited last year and really enjoy our time down there so we decided to go again. There was a handful of shots that I wanted to capture, as I did not manage to capture the images I wanted last year. Fortunately I managed to capture them this year. Once I had captured them I took a fairly laid back approach and just enjoyed being out photographing somewhere different. Whist I was down there I met up with Leigh Dorey to capture Corfe Castle in the mist, and also Kevan Brewer for a wander around a misty part of the New Forest.

Here are some of my favourite images that were taken in August.

Entangled

Entangled

Entangled has become a working title for a project that I have recently been working on. I shared a couple of images on social media and received some encouraging feedback, and a few people asked to see some more of them. I personally feel that these images work better as a group, rather than as single images. This is why I have held off posting any more of them.

How the project started

A few weeks ago I met up with Darren Rose and he introduced me to Rammamere Heath. We walked around the heath and the surrounding woodland for a couple of hours, and I immediately felt that this was a place I could keep returning to. The heath has a good covering of heather (which is not that common in these parts), and the surrounding woodland also looked very nice.

Since that first visit with Darren, I have returned a few times mainly just to scout the area and get to know it better. On one of these mornings, I was walking around the heather on the heath trying to find a composition that worked well. I glanced down at a large cobweb that was covered in droplets of water from the rain during the night. I took a couple of shots of it and moved on to continue with my search.

Truth be told I didn’t find the shot I was looking for and reviewing the images later on only underlined the fact. But the shots of the cobweb seemed to look rather interesting. After some processing, I was really pleased with the results and thought I might be on to something. I returned to the heath a few days later to get some more images. Focusing on the leaves and seeds that have been caught in them. Since then I have been making regular trips to the heath, and concentrating on a small area of the heath. In fact, a majority of the images were taken using only four large cobwebs.

Hasselblad, Entangled, Rammamere Heath, Bedfordshire, Cobwebs, web, spiders

What’s Next?

I plan to continue to keep visiting Rammamere Heath and the cobwebs, so the project will continue to grow. I visited this morning and everything was covered in dew. I saw that the heath was covered in plenty of other large cobwebs, which is good news as two of the four main cobwebs were damaged during the week, and they have not been repaired. I hope to concentrate a bit more on some images captured on film, which I think should work well. As for a book or something else, we will have to see.

The project currently contains around 60 images, but here is a smaller section of some of my favourites.

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My Flickr Favourites from July 2017

MY THREE FAVOURITE PICTURES BY OTHER
PHOTOGRAPHERS July 2017.

Here are my chosen three images from other photographers that were taken in July.
Like before my chosen images will be put together in a gallery on Flickr along with all the previous ones. Or you can read all of my other previous Flickr fave posts here.

Buttermere Bloom by Stuart McGlennon

Buttermere Bloom

Stuart really has captured a jaw droppingly beautiful image here. I knew as soon as I saw it this was going to be my favourite image this month. Well done Stuart I could look at this for ages.

Pebble abstraction by Cathryn Baldock

Pebble abstraction

Another well deserved entry for Cathryn here. I just love the colours and shapes and it reminds me of a piece of stained glass.

SILENCE 1 by Neil Burnell

SILENCE 1 (infrared tree project)

Neil’s image might look like it was taken in the middle of winter. But it is all down to it being taken with a converted infrared camera. I just love the simplicity and the calming feeling.

Well done Stuart, Cathryn and Neil.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Here is this months list of photographers that also deserve a mention. Click on the names to see their images. Justin Minns, Alan Leightley and Martin Tosh

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July 2017

Fields of Gold and Woods of mist

July has been pretty productive for me. While most people have been wondering what has happened to the sun, I have been celebrating the moody skies and the return of the mist in the hills. With the sun rising so early it gives me plenty of time to go out before work. I normally spend a lot of time hunting for new locations this time of year. But as the conditions have been so good, I only had a handful of mornings exploring new places.

Barley and wheat have continued to be a theme throughout July. It has turned from green to gold and in a few of the fields it has already been harvested. The windmill at Great Haseley has been a location that I have been visiting a lot recently. The windmill is 10 minutes away and it has had a nice field of barley growing in front of it this year. Being so close I was able to pop out in the evenings for an hour when the clouds were looking nice.

I have also started working on a small project with cobwebs. All of the images are monotone and a little abstract. It is only in the early stages but I like how it is going. Hopefully in the months to come it will continue to grow.

Last but not least I was pleased to see some misty morning back in the hills, and this last week has been especially good. Woodland in the summer can be really tricky as the greens can be really over powering. Also getting around can be a bit of a change as things like bracken and brambles have a tendency to grow everywhere. That said I did manage to get a few images that worked well.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to read this. Here are some of my favourite images from July.

 

My Flickr faves from June 2017

MY THREE FAVOURITE PICTURES BY OTHER
PHOTOGRAPHERS June 2017.

Here are my chosen three images from other photographers that were taken in June.
Like before my chosen images will be put together in a gallery on Flickr along with all the previous ones. Or you can read all of my other previous Flickr fave posts here.

Silver Studded Blue by Cathryn BaldockSilver studded blue on the heath

Cathryn has captured a really beautiful image here, the colour pallet and the softness are super. This year seems to be not a very good year for blue butterflies. So it is nice to see one captured so well.

Poignancy by Chaitanya Deshpande

Poignancy

Chaitanya has captured a really powerful image here, although the tragedy of Grenfell Tower in the background was unbeknown to him at the time.. The sense of calm in the foreground, with the looming smoke of Grenfell Tower in the background, is quite the juxtaposition.

Untitled by Andrew AtkinsonUntitled

Like most photographs June is all about poppies. This is quite a simple image from Andrew, but it captures the feeling of a warm summer evening so well.

Well done Cathryn, Chaitanya and Andrew

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Here is this months list of photographers that also deserve a mention. Click on the names to see their images. Stu Meech, Steve Palmer, Edd Allen, & Louis Murphy

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June 2017

Poppies, orchids and a pop up gallery

June got off to a good start with a short camping trip to the Gower in Wales. As is the norm with Wales we had some mixed weather that limited my photography a bit. But it is always nice to be away and somewhere a bit different. I managed to capture a series of nice shots from Three Cliffs Bay, which was one of my main goals of the trip. The Gower certainly is a beautiful spot and when the sun is out, the beaches are hard to beat.

Of course my Bucks Open Studios exhibition was a big part of June. Converting my house into a gallery and opening it up for three weekends in a row was a little disruptive. But overall the experience was good and I enjoyed meeting and speaking to all of the visitors. It was widely reported that the number of visitors attending the open studios was down compared to last year, but fortunately my sales did not seems to be affected too much by this. I just want to say thank you to everyone who came to visit me.

As I mentioned last month I find the summer months challenging, So I do tend to focus a little more on the smaller things like butterflies and orchids. The orchids seem to be having a good year this year, like most of the wild flowers. The butterflies seemed to have a bit of a hard time with the strong wind at the start of June. But the heatwave we had in the third week helped bring the numbers back up. Finding nice ones early in the morning whilst they are still asleep has been a bit of a challenge. So hopefully next month will be more rewarding.

The later part of the month was spent searching for poppy fields. It looks like farmers are no longer planting the lovely pink opium poppies in the fields in Oxfordshire, so I was only searching for red ones. After some fruitless searching locally I decided to head over to the Cotswolds one evening, and I managed to find seven fields full of poppies. The fields were all located fairly close together, so I really was spoilt for choice.

Here are my favourite pictures that were taken in June.

My Flickr faves from May 2017

MY THREE FAVOURITE PICTURES BY OTHER
PHOTOGRAPHERS May 2017.

Here are my chosen three images from other photographers that were taken in May. Like before my chosen images will be put together in a gallery on Flickr along with all the previous ones. Or you can read all of my other previous Flickr fave posts here.

Pond Art – 2 by William Dore

Pond Art - 2A cracking image from William. I really like the way the leaves are arranged and how they seems to glow against that nice black background. Excellent work William.

Orange Tip (female) by Neil Burnell

Orange Tip (female)I have been looking for a orange tip myself with this kind of image in mind.
Neil has captured this one perfectly with some lovely bokeh.

Stoke Common by Paul Mitchell

Stoke Common

I just love the golden light that Paul has captured on the side of these trees.
The mist adds a lovely soft backdrop to the image too.

Well done William, Neil and Paul.

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

Here is this months list of photographers that also deserve a mention. Click on the names to see their images. Cathryn Baldock Stu Meech Jake Turner Gary Miller

May 2017

From Wild Garlic to Orchids

May is such a wonderful month here in Buckinghamshire, as I am sure it is in other places around the UK. I think the transformation of landscape during May is quite amazing, resulting in a glorious green land. The vibrant colour of the new beech leaves is a particular favourite of mine. It’s a shame the colour only last for a couple of weeks.

Most of the first part of the month I spent in one location concentrating on wild garlic. Back in March I spotted a few patches of wild garlic growing, and made a note to return in May when I knew it would be in flower. Visiting the location every morning over two weeks, I enjoyed getting to know the area, even though most mornings the light was pretty flat. Even on the brighter days the light did not penetrate through the thick canopy where I wanted it to. All of these visits and exploring were important to me, so I knew where I needed to be when the conditions where good. Eventually the conditions were right and managed to capture what I wanted one Friday morning about 5.30am in the rain. The image was well received on social media and it looks great as a print.

As much as I like this time of year I also start to find it harder to photograph woodland and the landscape. The woodland I love in the winter becomes too green and overgrown for my liking. Because of this I start to turn my lens to the smaller things like orchids and butterflies, that start to begin to appear in May. I am lucky to have some locations near by that are home to some pretty rare orchids, so I started visiting these location in the later part of the month. Some of these orchids only grow in three locations in the UK and one of them is a hybrid that is unique to the location. Although this is not typically landscape photography they are a important part of my landscape. Besides I do find photographing something a little different rewarding.

Bucks Open Studios

During May I have also been really busy getting prepared for Bucks Open Studios, which is of course taking place next mouth. I will be opening up my home to visitors who what to come and see my work. I will be open for three weekends in June, so it will be great to see anyone who wants to come and visit me.

Here are some of my favourite images from May.