I got out of the house for an hour this afternoon and used part of that time to take a stroll around Stansted Mountfitchet. My plan was to explore some of the corners of the village I’ve never walked around before, but the weather had other ideas. By the time I found this shot of some ivy clinging onto a semi-derelict fence, the heavens had opened and I got seriously wet. At this point I decided to beat a hasty retreat and walked back to the car to dry out!
30 January 2018 - Confined to quarters
I’ve been confined to the house today, waiting in for a couple of parcels to be delivered. Frustrating as this is, it did give me a chance to catch up on some necessary admin jobs and print some photos too. When the parcels had finally arrived, I decided to sit in the garden for a while, preparing some music scores. I figure if I spend time in the garden regularly the local bird life will come to realise I’m not a threat and will hopefully come and feed while I’m there. This approach certainly worked with our young bluetit family last summer, although the goldfinches seem a little more skittish.
As I sat there quietly (wrapped in umpteen layers and with a blanket to keep warm!) the bird feeder tree was visited by a family of long tailed tits and two nuthatches, although I couldn’t get my camera to my face quick enough to photograph them. Eventually, a pair of bluetits and a few goldfinches returned and I was able to catch them on camera. By now the light was fading fast but not shooting through double glazed windows helped enormously with catching sharp shots! I can see I’m going to be spending more time out here in the coming weeks so hopefully I’ll be able to capture some of our other visitors.
If you'd like to hear what accompanied my time in the garden this afternoon I recorded a little of the birdsong and turned it into a video - you can find it here.
How could I resist wonderful textures like these on the door of the old fire house?
29 January 2018 - Slow photography
In these days of digital photography it’s so easy to get snap happy and find ourselves taking too many photos. I’m as guilty of this as the next person on occasions - when each frame doesn’t cost you directly it’s too easy to shoot without thought. Today I decided to take a more considered approach and do some ‘slow photography’. The best way I’ve found for this is to pick a single prime lens to shoot with. I often feel I take better photos when using a prime lens. It makes me think more carefully about how to frame pictures and use my feet to zoom.
My weapon of choice this morning was the tiny, jewel like, Olympus 45mm f1.8 lens. I’ve had this little gem in my kit almost since I first started exploring mirrorless cameras, but its effective focal length of 90mm isn’t one I use a lot. This sort of lens is a more natural habitat for portrait photographers and, as you know, I’m no portrait photographer!
My location for my slow photography was Thaxted. I’ve been to this beautiful village many, many times but I always find something new to aim my camera at. This morning I simply meandered through the streets, stopping off in the voluminous church, and photographed whatever took my fancy. All the while I considered my compositions with care and only took photos that really worked in the viewfinder. The result is a varied mix of subjects but one I thoroughly enjoyed exploring.
There's a tiny little garden beside the churchyard which was already thronging with snowdrops. Perhaps spring is on the way....
As an added bonus I also found my photo for this week’s ‘thoughtful’ theme over on the Photoblog forum during my walk this morning. If you like the idea of participating in the weekly theme do pop over to the forum and take a look here.
A bluetit tucking into the fatballs
28 January 2018 - The Big Garden Birdwatch
The last time I participated in the RSPB’s Big Bird Garden Birdwatch was way back in 2011 – somehow work has always got in the way since then. I got up early this morning and spent an hour watching the bird activity in our garden. As in 2011, Lucy came and joined me, sitting at the living room window watching our feathered friends with interest. In the end she decided she’d had enough and went outside to check out her territory in our neighbours’ garden instead.
The colours in this starling's feathers are glorious, yet in most lights they simply look brown!
As I watched the birds I took lots of pictures. The light was truly awful, with no sign of sunshine, so I was shooting against the odds. Of the 158 photos I took only these three come anywhere near being worthy of publishing. I was pleased with the starling though as what little light there was brought out the colours in its feathers.
We had bluetits nesting in our bird box last year but it seems the local great tits are interested in taking up residence this year.
Ultimately I came spotted quite a variety of birds, and I now need to upload the numbers to the RSPB website so the national statistics can be collated. Here’s what I saw:
- 4 Blackbirds
- 8 Goldfinches
- 2 Bluetits
- 1 Magpie
- 2 Bullfinches
- 1 Dunnock
- 1 Wood Pigeon
- 1 Great Tit
- 1 Robin
- 1 Greenfinch
- 1 Starling
It’s a pretty good representation of the birds that regularly visit our garden – thank goodness they all turned out when it mattered!
27 January 2018 - A test of patience and perseverance
To my amazement my new computer arrived yesterday afternoon, a mere 24 hours after I ordered it. Much as I was looking forward to the increased performance of a new machine I wasn’t looking forward to moving all my documents across to it. The main documents was the easy part but when I came to shift all my photos over in Lightroom I ran into major headaches, despite following all the right procedures. I spent a couple of hours trying to live chat with the tech folks at Adobe, only to find that they don’t work on a Saturday. Ultimately I managed to get everything where it should be and I was finally able to import the few photos I’ve taken today and edit one to post here. It’s certainly taken patience and perseverance in spades but, from what I’ve seen so far, my new computer has all the speed of a thoroughbred race horse and that should be a joy once I’m over the frustrations of today!
26 January 2018 - Rummaging around
The local birdlife seemed on particularly good form at Hatfield Forest this morning, with several robins filling the air with song. Opposite my 'office' the jackdaws were having a good old rummage around in the grass for tasty goodies, oblivious to my presence. I hoped to get more photos of them but this plan was scuppered by two rather overenthusiastic spaniels who came bursting through the gate and scared them off!
25 January 2018 - Cosy
Being stuck at home this week has been very frustrating, especially when the sun is shining and I'd prefer to be outdoors taking photos. However, I wasn't going to be defeated, so I sought inspiration from the Photoblog 365 Photo Ideas calendar, where today's theme is cosy. You may remember my little pocket bear, Cuthbert, who starred on my blog back in December. My Mum thought he looked a little chilly with no clothes so she's been busy knitting him an outfit. He's now a very well dressed bear about town, with trousers, a scarf (not pictured here - it wasn't that cold indoors!), hat and a cape! He looks decidedly cosy so he was a natural choice for the theme.
For my close up picture I had another try with the Panasonic G9's high resolution mode and, boy, does it make a difference having more light to play with! The high res RAW files come in at a whopping 80 megapixels and some 10,368 pixels long on their longest edge. The level of detail when you zoom in is astonishing and Cuthbert, with his fuzzy texture, was the perfect subject to see this. Of course, the files are enormous (a 461MB TIFF file once I'd tweaked him in Color Efex Pro!) so my aging computer complained a lot! However, that should soon be a thing of the past as my other activity for today was ordering a new computer. The new laptop will have an i7 processor, 32MB of RAM, a 1TB solid state hard drive and a 4K screen so Lightroom should absolutely whizz along once I've got it up and running! My current computer is almost five years old so I'm hoping the spec of the new one should keep me going for at least another five....
24 January 2018 - The holy grail of gloves?
As a photographer who suffers from Raynauds Syndrome, keeping my hands warm and functional while shooting in the winter is a perpetual challenge. The combination of winter weather and a cold camera are often enough to drain the blood from my fingertips, making it incredibly hard to feel the buttons and dials. When I used a DSLR I found silk lined leather gloves gave me enough dexterity, while being windproof. Of course, once I went mirrorless and introduced a touchscreen into the mix they didn't work.
I've tried various touchscreen gloves and found them all too bulky for precise control but last winter I discovered some cosy cashmere fingerless gloves which convert into mittens for warmth when it's needed. Although they have covered thumbs I found I could still the operate the touchscreen on my Panasonic GX8. Imagine my frustration when I bought my new G9 and discovered they've changed the touchscreen and my wonderful gloves no longer work!
A chance conversation with another photographer at Snetterton last week made me look up arthritis gloves online and found these beauties. They're thin, knitted gloves but with silver thread running through them. The silver reflects the heat back inside and has the added bonus that it is conductive enough to work with a touchscreen - result! Time will tell if they're really the perfect photography gloves but at least I can spend the rest of this winter shooting with warm hands and have complete control of my camera - fingers crossed!
23 January 2018 - Nature’s design
I’m delighted to say the glitch which prevented iOS device and Mac users seeing my pictures over on Photoblog seems to have been eradicated at last. That should make this duplicate blog redundant. Of course, I’m not going to tempt fate just now but abandoning this but, assuming it continues to work, I may well repurpose this part of my website in a week or two. Watch this space for further info!
In the meantime, here’s today’s post.....
My plan this afternoon was to have another go with the high resolution mode on my camera. However, I stupidly left it too late in the day and by the time I made a start the light levels had dropped too much for me to be able to use a low enough ISO setting for ultimate quality. This picture was shot in high res mode but at ISO 1600 its detail isn’t as clean as I’d have liked. It was as useful lesson learnt though and it made a pretty monochrome picture of nature’s use of the Fibonacci series in any case!
22 January 2018 - Curling up with a good book
Once again I've tried to stay indoors as much as possible today while my cold improves. Changes of temperature send me into paroxysms of violent coughs which, as well as being painful thanks to pulled stomach muscles, are liable to send any passersby running for the hills in fear of Aussie Flu! I've caught up on a few admin jobs around the house but also took the opportunity to do a spot of reading. My current book, The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor, is a murder mystery set in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London in 1666 and a bit of a page turner. Settling down this afternoon I grabbed a coffee and couple of welshcakes to go with it and was inspired to shoot the scene as my offering for this week's 'words' theme over on the Photoblog forum. If you fancy participating in the theme do pop over to the weekly theme thread and see what it's all about.