Day2Day - Bug Week!

It didn't start out as a bug week

but after snapping the butterfly on the now blooming buddleia and noticing the green bug was still hanging around the osteospermums, it sort of went that way of its' own accord.

The huge spider invaded my space on Wednesday which kind of sealed the theme for the week! Luckily I'm not scared of spiders - just as well really - this one was probably one of the largest British ones I've ever seen.
Mum bought me a Golden Hop to cover some boring fences last year. This year it has almost taken over one side of the garden but the white butterflies seem to like it. This pair were sitting like this for well over an hour - I'm not sure they would have noticed if I'd stuck a great big lens right in their faces but I gave them some space by using my zoom :)

This fella buzzed me whilst I was trying to shoot some bumble bees on the buddleia. So it made my afternoon and really topped off my Bug Week with a bang. We don't see many dragonflies round here and certainly not at rest within lens reach :)

Have a lovely weekend - I've already got a loose theme planned for next week but first I'm going to enjoy some of this sunshine they have forecasted and take a well deserved veg-out day:)

Day2Day - Week 3 - Wet, Wet and more Wet!

I think my photos this week show what sort of week we've had here in the UK. Bearing in mind, I live in one of the driest parts of the country and it has been raining almost non-stop since last Sunday.

Monday - one of the argyranthemum(sp?) daisies - a pressie from Mum :)

Tuesday - that green bug is still on the same flower and no, he's not dead! LOL

Wednesday - more rain but better light so raindrops it is!

Thursday - bit of sunshine during the day (whilst I was at work) but rained liked billy-o on the way home. Dried up enough to take the camera out later.

Friday - my lovely purple and white callas are doing really well - I'm up to 10 flowers now :) More rain again today :(

Day2Day - Ordinary Beauty

I haven't blogged too much about Etsy recently but one of the Uk'ers has started a new group on Flickr which I thought would be a good idea to try. The lovely Abi has a shop over on Etsy where she sells bags and clothes designed and made by her. I bought one last week just in time for the We Make London fair so I could take my chunky camera without the even chunkier camera bag!

Anyway, the Group is called Day2Day and the challenge is to take 1 photo each day, Monday to Friday then possibly blog about it. As it's the first week, I've not been very organised and haven't really built up a theme - at least not intentionally - but they've all been macro shots in my garden so I suppose that is a theme! So here they are - week 1 Day2Day

I'm going to try to think of a theme for next week - or at least a more cohesive group - like a set that will go together nicely.

Green Bug Thingy

Not sure what this little critter is but it looks like a bit like a grasshopper to me or maybe it's a cricket but I've never seen a cricket so I can't say! Anyway, I was playing with my macro lens and have decided that it's a tricky pest (the lens, that is) especially without a tripod. These shots are hand held but even so, the depth of field is so shallow, huge chunks of the picture are out of focus. It's definitely going to take some getting used to as most of my favourite shots are fairly straight, in focus type shots not arty-farty, soft focus, abstract ones.

I've been working on some more abstract shots though so once I've processed them, I'll post them here for some opinions :)

As for the question I posed the other day - yes, the tulip one is the photoshop soft focus one. The rose is almost straight from camera.