Out and about

As most of my creative projects are WIP's at the moment and not ready to be shared I thought I'd show a few more pics that I've been taking while we had that lovely spell of sunshie, that seems to have depressingly disappeared today.

On Sunday we went to our local Arboretum and as usual I wanted to take a pic of this beautiful bloom that was all but buried in the surrounding foliage. My poor long suffering OH can never understand why, I simply must take a pic of something in deep shade and in an impossible position, but it has to be done! After much fiddling about wrestling with the new tripod, a veritable beast, but wonderfully sturdy and a very timely pressy from my OH, I got the pic I was after. Hope you think it was worth it.



A very thoughtful volunteer saw us armed with more camera gear than is really sensible and kindly pointed us in the direction of the drifts of snowdrops, and what a sight they were too. Of course my OH had to lay flat out on the ground to get the best shot and a passing child was heard to remark excitedly to his Mum 'Mummy, Mummy, there's a soldier lying in the grass, and he's got a gun!" To which his Mum explained that it was just a man taking a photo wearing clothes that looked a bit like army camouflage. I think he was a bit disappointed!!
Anyway I got my shot without having to resort to laying in the wet grass!!



As we continued on our walk my OH discovered this sawn stump and I liked the pattern so much I thought I'd have a go at recording it, I think he was a bit disappointed when we got home that he hadn't bothered to take the shot, especially after he pointed it out to me!!



Continuing on the textural theme, I saw these amazing fungi on Monday when I took Ben (GS) out on a photo forage in our local woodland, these were right up the top of the tree so I think the camera/lens and tripod did a good job.



A little out of sequence but still on the textural theme I took this shot on the day we went to the seaside at a rather quiet 'out of season' butterfly garden, that didn't have any butterflies but did have a few of these splendid reptiles. It was horrendously dark and the glass on the tanks wasn't very clean, and I didn't have a tripod, so I was pretty pleased with this shot as it shows the patterns and colours quite nicely.




I took this shot of the valley at the Arbortum as a record of this beautiful sunny, frosty day, so typical of a proper British winter.



This last pic in the post is for Julie who challenged me to try and do more water colour practice and she would try and do the same with pastels. This is just a little 6"x4" sketch of the harbour we visited when we went to the seaside. I have to admit that I was too chickent and too cold to work on it on the day but used a photograph instead and tried to remember how I felt on the day, so I cloud try and recapture what it was that inspired me, and I think it was the colours in the sky and their reflection in the water.



Like Jacqueline I too seem to have been the target for silly comments lately so I have changed my settings, so please be patient if it takes me a little while to get used to what I have to do now.