I used to make a point of closeup nature photos, simplifying the complexity of plant structure down to a few lines, in dull light. For the first time in ages, I spent most of yesterday afternoon with just the old Helios 58mm lens attached, walking around, seeing what could be seen.
Didn’t expect ladybirds to feature at this time of year.
Over the course of New Year’s Eve I saw several aurora alerts. On checking, it was even visible as a pale grey band running above the neighbours’ houses, so I grabbed a camera and tripod and found a convenient path with a clear view to the north.
This was taken at a minute past midnight – some evidence of fireworks in Crieff with a wonderful aurora arcing over Strathearn.
Ringing-in the New Year with fireworks in Crieff from Auchterarder… with an aurora arching overhead.
A study of lines and shapes and forms of tree branches.
This episode is a study of green tree foliage and roads.
Details from a walk in the Black Woods of Rannoch, one of the Caledonian Forest reserves, in September.
My most popular photo on flickr, Raw, is a view taken an increasing number of years ago, as the light faded, looking down a big hole in the ground – the gorge below the lower bridge at the Falls of Bruar.
Today, whilst strolling along with Dog, I looked over some railings in the village carpark to another small gorge, and saw the cloud iridescence above me, reflected in a pool, the surrounding rocks draped with slimy green moss. How elegant…
Shades of pastel colours
And why not? No need to multiply words of explanation. Just, roadside geranium.
Ferns
The past couple of days I’ve been experimenting with the old Pentacon 50mm f/1.8 lens; its bokeh wide-open is quite spectacular, giving this small scene a strong sense of depth.
A clump of green shoots poking through, ready for spring
Two fields, grass recently cut
More nature’s bokeh – a solitary sycamore leaf basking in the sunlight on the road.
It’s that time of year when the teasels are doing their best troll doll impression. Wouldn’t want to sit on that.
A simple composition: detail of fallen sycamore seed on tarmac.
More fruitfulness – the first few tomatoes beginning to grow
Having discovered one or two people on Blipfoto who use it, I’m finding intentional camera movement (ICM) interesting as a means of artistic expression.
I make at least one photo per day; a few weeks ago I settled on wiggly wednesday as a theme – the results arising from multiple images taken with random camera movement, chosen for their visceral response, blended together and toned black&white as always. Making it a “Wednesday” thing is a great way to balance exploring the effect regularly with not overdoing it to the point of boredom.
Anyway, this morning I discovered it’s also viable on the mobile phone – in low light of a dull day among the trees its automatic exposures were long enough to let rip and see what happened.
(two frames blended in the Gimp and toned and processed in Darktable).