Wednesday, 30 April 2025

Arboreal Tunnel, Solo Biped

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No work for me tomorrow!
It turns out I've been labouring under a misapprehension for some time. I always thought "bipede" was the British English term, and "biped" was the US English version. It turns out I was incorrect, "biped" is correct English on either side of the pond, "bipede" is Italian.
The more you know...

Tuesday, 29 April 2025

Make A Wish

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I went for a long walk this evening. There were lots of dandelion seed heads about, which feels find of early to me, but maybe I'm just bemused (as usual)!
This might be my 52Frames submission this week, for the negative space challenge, but I will probably give it another couple of days to see what else I can come up with.
An interesting thing has occurred on Instagram today - they have finally (!!) added cross-posting from the desktop interface, so Facebook is going to get spammed with more of my photos now.

Monday, 28 April 2025

Blue Aura

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A couple of bluebell shots from yesterday's walk.
That would make these backup photos. The second one's after the jump.

Sunday, 27 April 2025

Stop And Reflect A While

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I went on what I thought was going to be a group walk this evening, but nobody else turned up!
Not sure if I got the date, time, or location wrong, or perhaps if I missed a cancellation notice; it was a very pleasant walk all the same.

Saturday, 26 April 2025

Bluebell And Friends

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I went bluebell hunting in a local woodland this afternoon.
I'm pretty happy with this one. I like the simplicity and contrasting colours of the bluebells and celandines

Friday, 25 April 2025

The Spider That Lives In The Overflow

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This is a shot (or at least a subject) I've been meaning to take for quite a while now. This spider has taken up residence in my boiler's pressure relief vent tube, and I regularly see a couple of legs sticking out as I unlock my door.
This evening, I set up the camera and flashes, and waited patiently to catch the rest of the beastie.
Sorry to any arachnophobes in the audience!
I used three diffused Godox MF12 flashes; two on the lens ring, at the top and bottom, plus a third on a stand to the left, filling the shadows and background.

Thursday, 24 April 2025

Trending To Singularity

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A late-ish walk today, so it was getting dark, but the light on the water was still looking good.
This reminds me a bit of a split funnel chart.

Wednesday, 23 April 2025

Alfresco Dining

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Enjoy your worms!
A lovely day today - it was actually even a bit too warm at work, particularly when we were cleaning our high voltage lab after months of hard graft and in preparation for a customer visit tomorrow.

Tuesday, 22 April 2025

Just Me And My Shadow

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Or "My shadow and I", if you happen to prefer that particular form of grammar.
A backup image today; I tried an experiment in wide angle close-ups with my 14mm lens and some orchids, but I wasn't satisfied with the results, and I feel like we have had quite a few flowers recently, anyway.

Monday, 21 April 2025

Oily Character (In Development)

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I went for a walk this evening and was surprised at how developed the rapeseed is now. I was here last week and there were very few flowers out. The smell is really quite strong too.
Thanks to @countryside_joy for the behind the scenes photo (and the walk suggestion!) (after the jump)

Sunday, 20 April 2025

Sunny Lie-In

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This one's my submission for this week's 52Frames "Under / Over Exposed" challenge.
I've been trying to come up with a suitable subject for this one all week, but the sun streaming through a bedroom window in the middle of a lazy long bank holiday weekend felt like a good fit for this style.

Saturday, 19 April 2025

Stars, Telegraphy, No Aurora

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I got an aurora alert on my phone, but nothing was visible from where I am.
I ended up not shooting anything else other than phone pics to help me find replacement parts for something, so this is the best I can offer for today!

Friday, 18 April 2025

Basil In Bloom

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I was just about to leave the house when I spotted these flowers on my basil plant, and temporarily shelved my plans to photograph them.
This basil plant has lasted remarkably well - every time I've bought one of these supermarket living herb plants in the past, it's snuffed it within a couple of weeks, but I've had this one for several months so far without killing it!
This is a stack of 9 shots taken with Helicon Remote, and stacked in Helicon Focus.

Thursday, 17 April 2025

Imposter (I Think)

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A photo taken on the day! I began to think it would never happen again!
I think this is a dead nettle, but wasn't curious or confident enough to poke it and find out...

Wednesday, 16 April 2025

2025-04-16

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A backup photo again today.
I was hoping to get some aurora, but it's looking like it might be a washout at the moment, after hours of strong activity while it was still light.

Sulking Salix

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"Weeping Willow" seemed a bit tired, so I thought an overhaul of the title was in order...
Late, and a backup, as per standard!

Monday, 14 April 2025

Go Find Ben!

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I thought it had been a while since I inflicted Bailey on you, so here you go!
This one's a backup from yesterday.

Sunday, 13 April 2025

The Alley Of The Lights

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I want to Bakewell with a friend today. There's a cute little cafe at the end of this alleyway, where we had a rather nice lunch.

Saturday, 12 April 2025

Bursting Forth

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A backup photo today, shot yesterday.
Although I actually shot quite a bit today, I can't share the results here because it was a private event.

Friday, 11 April 2025

Spring Is Springing

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Another beautiful day today, perfect for a walk with the dogs.
The dog tax is duly paid after the jump!

Thursday, 10 April 2025

Pasta, Desiccated

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This one's a possible 52Frames submission for this week's "Details" challenge, assuming I don't get anything else.
This is a 37 frame stack, shot with the WeMacro rail and processed with Helicon Focus.

Wednesday, 9 April 2025

Carillon Under The Microscope

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I've taken this photo on three separate occasions so far. I think I like the light on this one the best.
I enjoy the top-down shots that are possible with a drone; to me, they are a style that is almost uniquely limited to aerial photography, especially at this scale - flatlay images of the real world!

Tuesday, 8 April 2025

Uphill

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Late posting this one, and although I don't love it, it's the best of the bunch.

Monday, 7 April 2025

Companionable

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A backup photo for you today, shot Saturday.
The only photography I did today was boring technical stuff for work!

Sunday, 6 April 2025

Floating Bulb

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This one's my submission for this week's 52Frames "Levitate" challenge. In some ways, it's a re-do of a photo I shot back in 2011, although I've changed a few things, including allowing the light from the bulb to illuminate the background directly rather than hitting it with an external flash, and this time, I eliminated most of the external reflections on the glass envelope.
It's interesting to see that the LED has now become the standard light emitter rather than the incandescent lamp I used back then - I'm not sure LED bulbs were even available at that point, or if they were, they were very expensive.

I soldered a stiff copper wire to the base of the bulb, and a thin wire to the centre contact. These wires hold the lamp up, and pass neatly through a hole in the background, hidden by the base of the bulb, where they are connected to a power source.
Needless to say, this isn't the safest use of electricity, so I don't recommend repeating this unless you know what you're doing, and are comfortable working around live electrical equipment!

Saturday, 5 April 2025

Catch A Moonbeam

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I had a pretty lazy day today, recovering from the week. The weather was lovely, and I went out for a rather pleasant drive in the late afternoon / early evening.
I ended up in Queen's Park, Loughborough, where I shot this and a few others, and where I narrowly escaped being locked in by the warden!
I found two gates were locked up, and the warden was just closing the third when I got to it. I didn't realise that they closed the park at all as a routine thing. There were still quite a few other people in there when I left, so I clearly wasn't the only one who was going to be caught out.

Friday, 4 April 2025

What Are You Doing?

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I'm trying to make the most of my time with Holly and Pepper, and get some decent photos with them!

Thursday, 3 April 2025

Last Rays

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I liked the way the dying light was catching these leaves.
This one's a backup photo from last night. I ended up working late tonight.

Wednesday, 2 April 2025

Streetlight Begins To Assert Dominance

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New (2nd hand) lens day! Unexpectedly, times two.
I've been looking at replacing my ancient EF 35mm f/2 with the newer ultrasonic focusing, image stabilised version for a while, and one came up used locally, so I went to pick it up.
While I was there, I spotted a Samyang AF 14mm f/2.8 EF ultrawide in the cabinet, and bought that too. It's quite a fun lens, and I'm hoping it might be good for some big night skies, particularly if we get Aurora again soon.

Tuesday, 1 April 2025

Not So Fast

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A backup photo today, shot last night.
It's been another mad day today!