Easter, Eggs and New Beginnings

The ice and snow are slowly, slowly melting from the garden and the ice sheet is receding on my little pond.
Through this particularly grey winter it hasn't just been the meteorological climate that has been bitingly harsh; the winter chill seems to have pervaded the general mood as well.

But under the worst of conditions, life and hope emerges (as sure as eggs is eggs) and sure enough this weekend, from under the snowy duvet on the pond appeared the first batch of frog spawn.
If the frogs have confidence that conditions will improve, then I want to share their optimism.

Here's to new beginnings!
                                                     

Pippa's Song  by Robert Browning

 

The year's at the spring,

The day's at the dawn;

Morning's at seven;

The hill-side's dew pearl'd;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn;

God's in his heaven-

All's right with the world!

 

 

Capturing Snowdrops

Snowdrops are just too white.

They look charming as they daintily nod and tease the photographer from their dappled woodland setting and like sirens of the forest they lure droves of happy snappers to an afternoon of pain and frustration.

Memory cards fill up, batteries go flat, knees give out, and backs lock up in the efforts to capture that magic drift of fairy tale white amongst mossy tree stumps and dried oak leaves.

An afternoon spent chasing that elusive snowdrop picture resulted in nothing. A sea of white flowers became a sea of white …nothing-muchness and one lone snowdrop looked like a study for a gardening catalogue.

The play of bright sunshine through deep shade looks delightful to the eye, but is far out of my league when it comes to controlling the light for the image.  Still, if I hadn’t been trying to photograph them I wouldn’t have got down on my knees in the mud to have a close look, or been aware of their sweet perfume.

I feel I know snowdrops a bit better now, and because they play so hard to get, maybe I appreciate them more.

                                               Captured Snowdrops

Down in the Tulgey Wood

Winter draws on, and they certainly are; big thick wooly ones!

Over the last few weeks, we’ve had thick fogs, flooded roads, ice and now heavy snow, so Dog and I have been exploring some different places that we’d otherwise have missed by simply heading off in the car to the usual romps.

Deep in a dense old forest, and surrounded by deep welly-sucking bogs we came across a stand of once magnificent beech trees. Many were dead, some dying, others had fallen in a tangled, struggling mass. It was an eerie place; as though the whole forest was drowning.

The trees still living were turning green from the roots up. Moss and lichen, with their different shades of brilliant green gave a surprisingly cheerful atmosphere to the otherwise gloomy surroundings.

It was too dark to get a decent hand held photo of the mossy bark, so I knelt on Dog’s lead, while he went in search of the Jabberwock, and I rested the camera on a mossy stone. The forest floor had an odd mixture of sour mud smell and that pleasant leaf mouldy-mushroomy aroma.

Having snapped the picture, I was glad there was no-one, not even the Jabberwock, to see me slide backwards into a green pool while holding my camera like Excalibur above my head.

Here's the picture, now....where's Dog?

JABBBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gire and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought-

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood a while in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast though slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

One Cold and Frosty Morning

Over the last few days, we've had a magical display of hoar frost.
I suppose that after the recent deluge, the air must have been super-saturated so when the temperature plummeted we were rewarded with the theatrically beautiful ice show.

As I'm not sure of the science, I'm including a link which might help to explain the phenomenon.
http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/reports/wxfacts/Hoar-Frost.htm

It was an opportunity not to be missed, so armed with trusty Dog and faithful camera (or is it the other way around?) I headed for the fields.
I was thinking about one of my favourite, wintry, children's poems;

          Winter Time

  by Robert Louis Stevenson,

 

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding cake.

                                                        

I'm still trying to achieve better mood/atmosphere in my photos and to get away from the matter of fact representation of what I see, so in this shot of the teasels, I gave a little tweak to the RAW file using curves in photoshop. This reduced the contrast a touch and hopefully shows the shivery cold of the morning.
The other two pictures are just trigger happy fun on a beautifully cold and frosty morning.

Keep warm!

Burning Questions

Well, gausian blur still remains one of those delicious names, like Will o' the Wisp; flitting just out of reach and eluding my complete understanding.
However, I've been having a play recently, with dodging and burning. (I love whoever it was who made up these delightful names).

My first attempt was on a sunset scene, so something completely different for me to start with.
 I hesitated about making any changes, as I really didn't want a lurid straight-out-the-paintbox image. As I hovered over the burn tool, the feeling was like sitting in the hairdresser's chair, nervously asking for exciting new colours to brighten up my image, but not so much as you'd notice, please!

So, I chose a fairly big circle and swept it quickly over the sky. Phew. Done. But I couldn't see any real difference. I think I'd expected it to turn neon or something, and was quite relieved to find it was more subtle than I'd imagined. I then had a go at brightening the white paint and the marker buoys of the fishing boat, and left it at that.

I'm not sure how it could or should have been done, but here it is the way I did it:

My next attempt was a disaster...I'm going to need some proper advice.

Here's the "before" from the RAW, with just the recovery slider used, as the sky was quite burnt out.

 

...and here's the result of my own attempts at bringing out the robin a bit.

 

Not good

 





 

 

So look out kind friends at Chesterfield Photographic Society, here I come.
Maybe there's a Christmas card in there somewhere....

or maybe ......

Not!!!

 

Thoughts on catching light.

 

I know all too well that the time has come, and I can no longer keep procrastinating, to learn about digital image processing.

I’ve set myself two tasks recently; to capture light and to capture music in a photograph.

Wendy Cope’s  http://literature.britishcouncil.org/wendy-cope    beautiful poem, New Season inspired me to try to capture the image that she has so eloquently portrayed in words.

New Season Wendy Cope       

No coats today. Buds bulge on chestnut trees,

and on the doorstep of a big, old house

        a young man stands and plays his flute.

I watch the silver notes fly up

and circle in blue sky above the traffic,

        travelling where they will.

And suddenly this paving-stone

midway between my front door and the bus stop

                  is a starting-point.

From here I can go anywhere I choose.

 

In my mind’s eye, I can see the image I’d like to create; it would have a general mistiness and a very short depth of field. The overall colour would be silvery and there would be lots of lovely light and movement through the frame.

So far so good!

The name, Gausian Blur pops into my mind; I must find out what it is and how to apply it, as I think it might be something that could help to achieve the desired result. Meantime it’s just nice to let the words roll off my tongue, they have a delightfully ethereal charm, while I experiment with the camera settings.

To date, my shots lack the mood and essence of what I’d like to portray and by putting this in words for others to see, it’ll make me do something about it!

Here are a few of my attempts at catching light and catching music.

This is a starting point. From here I can go anywhere I choose.

Let’s hope it’s onward and upward!

 

Catching Light

 

 

                                                           A Little Light Music

  

 

How missing the boat led to a grand day out.

"Hello...Alison?"...I'm sorry to say, the trip to the Bass Rock has been cancelled...."
The rest of the phone message became a blur in my left ear as I half listened in disbelief.
A heavy sea swell was forecast, which would make the tricky landing impossible onto the craggy face of the Bass Rock. So, that was it; nothing to do for a whole day and that's far too long to sit and mope!

I was staying in the ancient fortress town of Dunbar and quickly discovered that the present day life of the town is still firmly anchored in its colourful past, with Black Agnes featuring large in everyone's mind.

It was in March this year that the newly built St Ayles rowing skiff, "Black Agnes" was launched in Dunbar, under the watchful eye perhaps of her 14th Century namesake standing on the still defiant remains of Dunbar castle.

Well, it's an ill wind blaws naebody gude, and if the Bass Rock trip hadn't been cancelled, I would have missed the spectacle of Dunbar Coastal Rowing Club's Regatta.

The sleek St Ayles skiffs, all immaculate and lovingly built by townspeople around the Scottish coast, had gathered and were manoeuvring into position. At the sound of the starting canon and yells from the coxes of "Row!" the teams pulled the little boats into the waves and battle commenced.

Jostling for the lead and negotiating tight turns around Scart Rock and marker buoys, the teams rowed the nimble boats round the course and headed for home in a nail biting finish.

I'm hooked!
Such excitement, and such a wonderful atmosphere.

I was told that one of the skiffs will be taking part in the Great River Race in London on 15th September.

I'll be there, and you'll hear me cheering her on!

                                                                 To Boldly Row
                                  The Dunbar team in Black Agnes head out of the harbour

                                                             Skiffing Over the Water
                                                    The Queensferry team in Ferry Lass