Another lunch break in the park

Such a lovely early Spring day today so out came the pocket camera and off to the park I went :) I spotted some early blossoms so it was time to try out the macro and super macro modes (always my first love) and I have to say, considering they are handheld and there was a hint of breeze, I'm actually quite pleased with these two.

I also spotted these willow shoots dangling in the river - I can't tell where the tree meets the reflection and I was there - love this in an abstract way!

And, of course, the cheeky squirrels were out in full force! I think I saw about 6 at various points along the path and another 3 or 4 down by the duck pond where some small children were feeding the ducks. They are mighty brave these little fellas but oh so cute too.

Day2Day - Flying through!

Hubby is treating me to a spa day for our anniversary so I'm just gonna post and run on this weeks shots - bit of a mixed bunch again as I've just started a new job and have run out of time to be organised every evening this week.

Monday - light tent again - this is a tiny lava pebble with peridot included.

Tuesday - light tent semi permanently set up at the moment - constant reminder to shoot some stock and really quick grab shots for project365! - This is the back side of the dried sunflower I posted last week but just as interesting in its own way.

Wednesday - the weather started to improve so I took a lunchtime walk up the road a bit - this crane is near the little quayside within a few minutes of the office.

Thursday - not quite such a nice day but the tide was out and this is the mud flats of the river estuary - not the prettiest place in the world but definitely different and interesting :)

Friday - more light tent work with the macro - a morning glory in blue - not photoshopped - it really is this gorgeous colour. I saw a kingfisher down by the river this morning - will definitely be taking my camera to work again next week - telephoto and tripod too this time :)

See you next week - wish me luck with the kingfisher!

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 - week 2

This week has been hellish busy at work but I've been a good girl and still managed to pull something out of the camera for the Day2Day group daily challenge. If you haven't seen this group, the idea is to take a picture every day, Monday to Friday of something ordinary but beautiful, in order to improve your photography or just for a challenge.

Started off the week a bit late so had to find something that was still getting some sunlight in the evening - ta-dah a bud of the mysterious 5ft visitor - turns out it's a verbascum.

Tuesday - the sun was just dropping as I got the camera out so another quick dash to get this lovely pink Candytuft. Gave it quite a hard crop, not only to get rid of some of the background rubbish but also to experiment with a square format.

Wednesday - inspiration struck as this was quite dull in colour - pop the red leaf in photoshop. All I've done is convert the original to black and white using a channels mixer layer, then erased that layer over the red leaf.

Thursday - another race the evening sun shot - this time using the shadow as part of the picture.

And last but not least Friday - a beautiful Spirea Japonica 'Shirobana' flower. This shrub was a cheap find in the bargain bucket somewhere. It was just a stick with 2 buds but has been flowering every year for about 10 years now. The flowers are white, pink or a mixture of the two. This is a closeup (obviously!!) of a white flower head.

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.