GARDEN 73 – A WONDERFUL ENCOUNTER 2

 

 

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Robin in our front garden.  Another image, and the full story of this encounter, are here (opens in a separate window).

The composition here is a little awkward, but I do like those leaves up in the top left corner!

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – certainly recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens used in DX (= APS-C) format to give 450mm; 3200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Landscape v2 profile; south Bristol; 22 Sept 2020.
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ARCHIVE 570 – AUTUMN HAZEL, DOUBLE EXPOSURE

 

 

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A double exposure of the Hazel tree in our Bristol garden, with the beautiful yellow leaves that it has in the autumn.  The camera was moved slightly between the two exposures.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

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GARDEN 72 – A WONDERFUL ENCOUNTER

 

 

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Out doing a bit of gardening, cutting our “front lawn” (aka The Dandelion Patch – I like Dandelions!).  And I kept getting the impression out of the corner of my eye of something darting swiftly by – until at last there came a beautifully warm red-orange glow from the bottom of a dense bush, and there was a Robin, a fairly small type of thrush.

And as I raked the grass and so laid bare more and more food items for him, he darted out more and more and dutifully gobbled them all down.  And knowing birds a little, I kept fairly still and started talking to him in much the same way that I talk to cats – quietly, softly and low.  And, looking up at this giant towering over him, he came closer and closer, to within a couple of inches of my feet I suppose, and I did wonder whether he might hop up onto the top of my shoe.

But he hopped away again, though not far away – and I started thinking about a photograph.  So, very quietly and slowly, keeping my eyes on him, I backed away into the house where I knew the Z 6 with a telezoom attached and a charged up battery were ready and waiting.  Creeping back out into the garden again I was sure he’d have disappeared – but no, he was still there, looking me.  So I carefully braced myself against the wall of the house and managed a few pictures.

Trouble was, I’d hardly used the Z 6 since the start of the coronavirus lockdown in March – I’ve been almost entirely photographing with the Olympus TG-5 – and so I’d forgotten exactly how the ***** Z 6 works!!! >>>> and so to several failed shots!

But a couple of the frames came out ok – and so to a record of a really wonderful close encounter, just the thing in fact to lift the spirits in these very sad and trying times.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – certainly recommended.

Technique: Z 6 with 70-300 Nikkor lens used in DX (= APS-C) format to give 450mm; 3200 ISO; spot metering; Lightroom, starting at the Camera Landscape v2 profile; south Bristol; 22 Sept 2020.

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ARCHIVE 561 – EARLY MORNING GARDEN 1

 

 

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Leaf on our Hazel tree; 24 June 2013.

The black elements in this photo have a vague upper left to lower right (or vice versa!) orientation, which produces something of a dynamic maybe.  And I like the leaf’s serrated periphery.

But most of all I enjoyed the cool, peaceful stillness of the garden early on this overcast morning – the grove of Cowslips gone to seed, some new Badger holes, and everything generally running riot, certainly heading to something like jungle unless I intervene.

Click onto the “early morning” tag (below) to see more images from the early hours of the day.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: D700 with 105mm Nikkor lens; 12,800 ISO.

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ARCHIVE 529 – CLOUDS IN THE EARLY MORNING

 

 

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Early morning clouds over our garden; 22 Apr 2013.

Click onto the “early morning” tag (below) to see more images from the early hours of the day.

Click onto each image to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: D800 with 70-300 Nikkor lens; 400 ISO; all underexposed to various degrees in Capture NX2 to saturate colour and bring out detail.

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ARCHIVE 523 – LOOKING UP AT SUNRISE (MONO)

 

 

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Looking up over our garden this morning – clouds and a contrail caught by the rising sun; Bristol; 22 Apr 2013.

I was just on the point of making that greatest of luxuries, the morning’s first cup of tea, when I glanced out of the window.  And then came one of the great improbables – a FATman moving at a rate of knots – in a frantic dash out into the back garden!

I love skies and clouds but, especially when the sun is just appearing or disappearing, and when contrails are moving steadily across the sky, things happen quickly – and there’s no time to hang about!

Click onto the “early morning” tag (below) to see more images from the early hours of the day.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

Technique: D800 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 135mm; 400 ISO; Silver Efex Pro 2, starting at the Fine Art High Key preset.

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ARCHIVE 522 – SNOWSTORM (MONO)

 

 

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Snow falling in our back garden; Bristol; 5 Jan 2010.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 1600 ISO; converted to mono in Alien Skin’s Exposure 2, and given the look of Fuji Neopan 1600 black and white film.

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ARCHIVE 518 – MY GARDEN AND ME

 

 

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“My Garden and Me”; 4 May 2008.  Cowslips and Forget-Me-Nots, which are always left to go completely to seed before being mown, form a glowing and increasingly large patch of yellow and blue in our garden each spring.

The apparent falling away of the ground around my feet is due to the distortion produced by the fisheye lens when it is pointed away from the horizontal.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window – recommended.

Technique: F6 with Sigma 15mm full frame fisheye; Fuji Provia 400X colour slide film, rated at 500 ISO.
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ARCHIVE 513 – HAZEL, A (FOR ONCE) PLANNED IMAGE

 

 

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Hazel leaves, in our back garden; 25 June 2013.

This was captured with a definite visual plan – the eye enters the frame from the left, very soon hits the brightest component, and then moves rightwards and upwards along the “tail” of darker objects leading to the upper right corner of the frame.  The eye might then exit the frame in the upper right corner: having the final element of the “tail” there might stop it, or it might have been better to have this corner dark.

I never cease to marvel at the beauty of Nature.  What am I looking at here, what is my camera recording?  Well, light that has travelled 93 million miles from Our Star, to partially shine through a small component of one of Earth’s myriad lifeforms.

Click onto the image to open a larger version in a separate window.

Technique: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 250 ISO.

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ARCHIVE 493 – EARLY MORNING GARDEN 9

 

 

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Seeding grasses; 25 June 2013: part of a project I was doing in my back garden, in Bristol, seven years ago.  I get up early on the morning anyway, and so the project’s simple plan was to down a cup of strong tea and get out into the garden early in the day, using mainly this 70-300 telezoom (the lens I continue to be married to) or a 105mm macro lens.  >>> but  LOL!!! >>> I tend to be a little less athletic and supple now than I was then so that, if I were to attempt such photos again, I may need the emergency services to get me back up onto my feet!  Well, after all, one must suffer for one’s art … 🙂 …

For those looking at composition, my eye tends to start appraising the image from the left, and is initially caught by the in focus subject of the shot, which is set against a somewhat darker background.

This subject is mirrored by the similarly orientated (i.e. repeating patterns) but out of focus stems further back, which are set against, and which tend to blend into, a rather paler backdrop.  These diffuse stems give the shot depth.

Technique: D700 with 70-300 Nikkor lens at 300mm; 800 ISO.

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