@NationalTrust Wimpole Hall Estate in Autumn

With autumn upon us and unseasonably warm weather since getting back from Korea we headed out to Wimpole Hall (National Trust) to have a weekend walk around the estate with a friend of ours. I was in a t-shirt walking around, utterly splendid despite being Halloween (surprisingly similar to last year in fact). What's more there was an actual hill to climb which afforded an actual view. A view. In Cambridgeshire. What joy!

wimpole tree stitch

wimpole pond

branches stitch

light through the trees

autumnal leaves

yellow and orange

wimpole at sunset

last light through the trees

Nasturtium leaf from behind and other macros.

I've had my 35 mm lens on so much recently that I felt it was time for a change. Out with the macro lens while the sun was shining at the weekend. Actually, the sun was a little too bright at times leaving me to resorting to sun effect shots through the leaves and petals.

nasturtium leaf from behind

yellow and blue

prickly echinacea

dahlia from front

dahlia from behind

a yellow what's it called

pompom dahlia

fly on cornflower

cornflower up close

my son eating the garden (nasturtiums are a favourite of his)

2015-09-06

Three lightning pics from last nigh's thunderstorm | #Cambridge #Histon

lightning through my window due to the rain

a bolt from the pink

sheet lightning

[2015-07-17]

I can certainly see myself in his eyes

Saturday was a good day. The little chap had been pretty grizzly for most of Thursday and Friday so we were a little worn out by Saturday but hopeful that it was a growth spurt and as such he would be calmed down. This seemed to be the case, either that or he was so worn out by the crying that he needed a good days sleep. Dr K cycled off early to yoga for the first time since birth and I was left solo with him to head down later by bus. Thankfully there was a bottle of expressed milk in the fridge as a backup in case things kicked off, which they did a little and it calmed him down enough to slip him into a milk coma and for me to slip him into the sling. I then braved the horror that is Stagecoach paying £4.10 for the privileged of what would turn out to be a one way ticket.
We met up at midsummer common for the 42nd CAMRA Cambridge Beer Festival and slowly enjoyed a lunch of sandwiches (bread baked in the morning with rocket from the driveway) then joined by friends with black bean balls, chocolates and other delicacies. Meanwhile I enjoyed a range of beers in 1/3 pints meaning that over the course of the 8 hours we spent there I consumed under 2 whole pints. The weather gradually warmed up and I got out my camera trying out the new 35mm prime lens that Dr K had picked up from John Lewis for me. That gave the first image blow, the second of me is from the phone.

reflection in my child's eye

celebrating an early towel day at the 42nd Cambridge beer festival
2015-05-23

In the garden recently - a blooming lovely combination of flowers and weeds

It has been a striking early spring in the garden and quite a surprise. Just before April the garden was only green with the odd daffodil and hyacinth but not much else. Then suddenly the forget-me-nots exploded into life simultaneously with the tulips and wall flowers. It was utterly tremendous and a wonderful welcome for Mr Sir's arrival. I was able to enjoy the garden with Nana on two separate occasions which was extra lovely. It's just about beginning to go over now, though the clematis is in full glory and the rowan tree is throwing out a lovely scent in the evenings (at least I think it's the rowan: I can't find anything else at ground level which is scented presently.)

the pink clematis offset with blue forget-me-nots

the drape of clematis on the fence

this is my favourite wallflower this year, a deep wine purple

the clematis is climbing the rowan

two brassicas, one for flower on for leaf

our patio area with chimenea

full on clematis magic
2015-05-09

Splish Splash!

Repost from 2004

Had a first go at trying to capture those beautiful water droplet images you see. Set my D70 up in the kitchen on my tripod with desk lamp shining on one of my Chinese bowls. Then standing over the setup, I tried to drop drips into the bowl while clicking my remote control to take the images. Some success of which a couple are here for your viewing pleasure:

A coloured drop in the ocean

Classic water droplet

Drop a la 'Crown Paint'

2005-04-02

Tall grasses on an otherwise not tall landscape

Just a photo from our walk at the weekend taking advantage of the sunny weather. It's flat round here. Really flat. I'll try not to moan too much and just leave you with this picture of some tall grasses that were glowing in the low sunshine reminding me of the 'Tall Grass Mountain' in South Korea

tall grasses in the sun
2015-02-10

Building snow clouds overhead in #Histon, #Cambridgeshire

The radio is abuzz with reports of snow in the North. I checked the radar and apparently there was rain everywhere, but I looked outside and could optimistically describe the ground a mildly damp at best. But looking up I spotted this rather lovely cloud underbelly like globules of Malachite. A few flakes of snow were drifting down but not enough to worry about here in the flat lands.

snow cloud overhead in Histon
2015-01-29

Desktop 1 or Desktop 2? They both look so tempting in Mission Control on #yosemite

I really enjoy having my best photography images as my desktop backgrounds, and this is especially enhanced on my Mac now that I'm running Yosemite.

Mac Mission Control

Apparently this was what I was drinking by choice a decade ago.

This was my birthday activity ten years ago - taking myself off to the Southampton Airport flightpath to photograph aircraft on approach. Don't get me wrong, this is still something I would enjoy now, but it it surprising to see how things have changed in ten years. In some ways so much and in other ways hardly at all. One thing that has definitely changed is my taste for alcohol. Back then I must have only just found that I could actually buy drinks for myself at home (I can't remember drinking anything much before then), and clearly I was only on the level of enjoying cheap and fairly nasty cider (at least it's not Blackthorn). Around this time I also discovered wine, red wine in particular and remember a few Friday evenings when I retired to my bedroom after Film & Chips to find the whole room spinning quite swiftly round and discovered to my surprise that it is possible to fall off the floor. The joys of youth. Now I enjoy real ale and gin from The Cambridge Distillery.

drinking habits a decade ago - almost an Andy Worhol of cider

a rather beautiful rich sunset

the first plane approaches (quite exciting)

birds gather in the fading light

like a scene from many a film
2014-12-17

Autumn light on the some of the few trees in Histon, Cambridgeshire

I took the opportunity of being at home in the afternoon while it was actually sunny to nip out and enjoy the delicious sunlight sifting through the nearby beech trees. There's not many trees round these parts - we are the least wooded county in England, so you take what you can get. These beautiful trees used to have a companion, but the Council seem intent on deleting as many of the few remaining trees as possible (it's almost as if they fear the trees somehow, Ents perhaps?).

low sun in autumn

lighting up the beech trunks

shining through the leaves

silhouetting the leaf fallen

the village of Histon
2014-11-17

Sunrise is wasted on commuters.

Joining the 07:45 to KGX this morning I was again struck by how wasted sunrise is on the average commuter. It would be far better saved for more people by bringing it later in the day (perhaps, shock surprise, by keeping BST all year?). I enjoyed it at least, but didn't really feel comfortable on a packed commuter train to go all soppy and start taking photos out of the window of the overcrowded train.

sunrise

2014-11-24

I'm Fine for Ducks

Ducks are one animal I think I have enough photographs of now. I've been browsing back through my photo catalog recently, now that all 14 years of digital photography are on my one MacBook Air, and at various times I've photographed ducks in varying surroundings but not with varying degrees of success. None of the photos of ducks looks anything special. I think I might be fed up of trying to make ducks look interesting in photographs. So I'm done with ducks. Sheep and swans also.

an example disappointing duck photo
2014-11-15

Chesterton Tower Cherry Tree Blossom, Cambridge

Part of my recent photographic exploration I found this set of images from spring a few of years ago. We watched this cherry tree explode into a riot of shocking pink like I've never seen. One evening the light was just right after a Sunday of rain and so I popped out to shoot these. The photograph of the bike leaning against Chesterton Tower is my favorite and very Cambridge.

cherry blossom explosion

shocking hot pink

the low light beautifully illuminated the fresh green leaves

background lit blossom

a classic Cambridge sight
2014-11-16