Arthur goes to on tour

This weekend we have been near Swindon on grandparent duty, looking after Arthur whilst Adam & Kate went to a wedding.  He seemed to play up to the camera when I took these shots

Wildlife in a Northamptonshire garden

Visiting a friend whom we've not seen for many years we were privileged to explore her garden which she and her late husband have set up to attract all sorts of wildlife - during a 20 minute walk before lunch we saw numerous butterflies and dragonflies as well as 3 slow worms and several lizards. I wished that I'd taken my "proper" SLR with me, but my little Lumix G2 didn't do too badly!

Wicken Fen - a dragonfly emerges

Joining a group from the Cambridge Camera Club I was interested to have a go at some close-up shots of damsel flies or dragonflies.  When I arrived I was delighted to find that someone had already discovered a dragonfly in the process of emerging from its larval form.

Finally, a damsel fly for Nigel:

Photographing water

I spent an hour this afternoon photographing moving water in an effort to learn how to handle the effects of shutter speed with fast moving water.

This first shot was taken at 1 sec at f32 - I like the effect of the snowdrift below, but it would probably have been even better had I spotted the polythene bag caught on the driftwood!

The next shot is a different part of the same weir at 1/40 at f5.6 - I like the glassy effect of the falling water, but the water at the bottom is neither one thing nor the other - not so good!

These next 2 shots  show a much sparser part of the weir which seemed to be almost ready to dry up with the naked eye;  the first shot is 1/2 sec at f15 (ISO200), the second 1/640 at f15 (ISO800) and has managed to freeze some water droplets in mid air

Now a couple of shots of larger volumes of water - the first showing the conjunction of two sources from different parts of the same weir and the second showing the rush of water coming through the sluices above Silver Street Bridge. Both were shot with a shutter speed of 1/2 second

Finally something a little more tranquil - as I walked back to my car, a shaft of sunlight broke through and lit up the willows against the glowering gray sky:

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An afternoon in Cambridge

I joined a Camera Club trip to Cambridge shooting a series of prescribed subjects; I found this challenging and fun. Particularly "Motion" for which I failed to get any shots within the rules, though this composite pleased me after a little work in Photoshop

I'm not sure whether this is "predominantly one colour" or "a familiar object from an unusual angle" but Ann Miles' pictures (see link) of trains at Royston and Paddington rang some of the same bells!

Anglesey Abbey gardens in the snow

Walking through the Winter Garden, the first thing to catch my eye was the amazing coloured barks of some of the  shrubs lining the path

The ghostly silver birches seem to work well in black and white

Then I got carried away with the canopy, shamelessly plagiarising one of Ann's pictures in the autumn. The fisheye lens gives a wonderful effect, though I would have done better to lie on my back in the snow!