Close up photography experiments

Apologies for the lack of recent updates, my husband and I were both laid low with one of those nasty, once in about 15 years, coughs and colds. Those ones that are so unpleasant that you will remember them clearly for many years to come. It was all I could do to ensure that I looked after customers properly and get from one day to the next. Sleep was hard to achieve, so I'm trying to catch up on that a little now too.

It perhaps serves me right for feeling a little smug that we'd both survived about 3 winters without either of us succumbing to much more than a modest sniffle - we'd managed to avoid all the bugs that do the rounds and were in decent health when those around us were struck down. So it would appear that we were paid back by getting all three winters worth in one dose.

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It's lovely in summer months to get out for an evening walk whilst dinner is in the oven and Monday evening gave us such an opportunity after a rather grey day.

I have also been without my most recent camera for some weeks whilst it was repaired under warranty, but having picked it back up at the weekend, it appeared to be fixed - and it's true that the major problem had been cured with a new lens and sensor unit - but there are still restless ghosts in the machine and I've taken the shop manager up on his offer of upgrading to the newer replacement model by paying the difference in their prices. They can't replace it directly as they can't get the model any more.

I've taken this scene very many times and can't resist walking past and taking another - I was actually looking for two families of young ducks who live on this stretch of river, but they were obviously all off on adventures.

I would actually have the new model in my sticky mitts right now, as I'd worked out a convoluted way of walking and bus journeys to attend to several errands in one trip today, but I totally forgot to get out and take with me the camera receipt and had to return home and cancel my plans - I'm livid about it and have no one to blame but myself. Having been very good for about 2 weeks, I was going to treat myself to something nice for lunch too - so now I will have to raid the store cupboard instead. Serves me right really, I deserve to be punished.

Having collected the repaired camera on Saturday morning, I was keen to do some work with it to ensure it was now working well before we go away next week, so I fired off quite a lot of assorted shots to check how it was working and a few during a walk on a rare nice evening on Monday.

I was rather surprised at how well my camera and close up filters worked when I saw the detail in the face.

One of the things I was keen to try with it was to do some close ups with some additional close up filters. I didn't even know if they would work with a digicam of this nature (I usually use them with my DSLR and lenses), so dug them out to have a go. They seem to work pretty well, by shortening the minimum focus distance for any particular focal length (i.e. zoom) - allowing you to focus on something that bit closer than usual and thereby increasing the size of the subject on the sensor.

The tiny pollen encrusted parts of these honeysuckle flowers look like sugared sweeties.

The definition of macro is that the subject is captured at 1:1 scale on the sensor or film plane - or better. So most digicams, despite having 'macro' modes aren't capable of actually capturing true macro photographs, they'd be more appropriately described as close ups. For example, the camera in question has a sensor 6.17mm x 4.55mm in area, so to capture a macro photograph, something 6.17mm wide would totally fill the photograph from left to right.

This particular bee with a taste for my lavender got rather camera shy and would vanish when I started taking photos, so I had to get sneaky to catch him in action.

But the addition of the close up filters (+3 dioptre in this case) - which it transpired were a different size from the front screw mount of my lens - so had to be hand held in front of it - clearly allowed a little extra magnification. My technique whilst working in this manner needs some work (I was just tinkering very quickly to see if it had merit before buying filters the right size) and I think the filters I have are rather poor in quality and I was getting some terrible colour halos around any edges catching the light. But I think it might be interesting to play some more with them and work out the maximum magnification and a suitable working distance to optimise the potential. I think it's something that I will enjoy working at.

Just as soon as I get my replacement camera that is - and the sun coming back out would help too, please!

Aren't lavender flowers a complex structure when you look at them closely.

A hidden gem we've walked past many times

I've just realised that this is my 100th blog post here - I had intended to mark the occasion with something more in keeping with the milestone, but it's nearly midnight on a Sunday evening and to be blunt, my imagination and flair has totally deserted me, so apologies that it's not something more worthy.

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Whilst we were away over the Easter period the Fuji bridge camera I had been given for a recent big birthday to use as a walk-around camera when I didn't want to be weighed down with the bug guns, had developed assorted faults and is currently back with the manufacturer to be looked at, under warranty. There is clearly something amiss with the sensor and a whole collection of small, somewhat intermittent, but increasingly frequent, niggly problems - like it won't switch off or on, won't change mode etc. At first I put them down to quirks of the model, but when you lose shots because of them, or get home and find that several frames you took that day were totally out of focus, something really has to be done with it.

The fabulous gardens as Sizergh Castle in the Lake District - I have already published a photograph of this scene from a JPEG file - but having opened up the RAW file and seeing how much better the tonality of it is, as well as how much further detail I have been able to bring out, it has made me question my workflow all over again.

I had been happy with my Easter photos until I opened the ones taken with my DSLR. But considering this camera and lens combination cost about 7 times the amount of my new camera, it jolly well should show it up.

None of the very many photographs I took of this scene with different cameras really did it justice, with the low early evening sun filtering through the spring foliage and warming up the fragrance from the bluebells.

So whilst I'm without it, it has given me the opportunity to work on some photographs I'd taken recently that I hadn't done anything with yet and to give further thought to some of my concerns over the image files I get from it - and my perpetual quandary since getting it on how best to use it - I've never quite been able to get colours right in landscapes (which I think my Easter collection helped me to make decisions) and can't settle on just working with out of camera JPEG image files, or to do the extra work of using RAW files which give better results, but are more work - and the software provided for doing so is rather clunky to use, somewhat discouraging that approach and the frustration it invariably brings.

Bluebells nestled amongst bright spring green emerging foliage - one of my favourite things.

I was pretty happy with the photographs I took over Easter (largely as JPEGs) until I worked on both some images I took with the much larger and heavier DSLR (which at the time of buying, the cost - with the ultra wide angle lens I like to use - cost about 7 times this other newer camera, so it jolly well should show it up) and also some of the frames I took with the bridge camera in a RAW format and developed into images myself using software - a slightly tedious process, but certainly yielding better results.

So whilst I've been tinkering and trying different post-processing settings, which has been a really worthwhile process for me, I found a series of photographs I took before we went away at Easter and had temporarily forgotten about. We moved to this area about 29 years ago when we got married - we commuted to the area for work for 3 months initially, whilst we looked for a house and planned a wedding, moving here properly when we returned from honeymoon.

The area surrounding the reservoir was once farmland with assorted cottages and farms and it's always fascinating to see the gateposts and walls remaining from such previous occupiers. I wonder how many modern gateposts would withstand the passage of time in this manner

On the moors above us is a reservoir which has a 2Km walk around it and we do this lap very often, having walked it many, many times in those 29 years. And regular readers will know how much I love walking in woodland and how important being amongst trees is for me.

Off to one side is a steep narrow path disappearing into the trees and we only recently set off up that path to see where it took us. I'm actually now pretty cross that we've walked past it dozens of times without ever realising that it adds an extra loop into the walk through a most unexpectedly gorgeous wooded area.

It just goes to show that even little gems like that can be right under your nose without you knowing, or appreciating it. I can't see us missing out that loop many times in future - although I think it might be tricky walking if it's especially wet or icy - which it often is when we do that walk.

The leaves were just emerging when we were up there in April, but I hope to be back there very soon when I expect that the green will have exploded from what you see in these photographs. I'm really looking forward to it - and to my camera coming home too - I'm sorely missing it.

Turquoise dyed magnesite beads with double coiled antiqued copper. I wanted something with smaller beads to match the large chalk turquoise beads I use in necklaces, for those that prefer a more discreetly-sized earring.

Work-wise this last week I've been a good girl and caught up a little on photographing my backlog of finished pieces. I can seemingly make much faster than I can photograph (that's no doubt more to do with my motivation, making is so much more fun) and list pieces and I find the perpetual backlog really tiresome. But I set myself some deadlines last week and actually met them. I'm hoping to reward myself with some quality bench time to tackle some new ideas this week.

The best holiday weather since 1996

That says it all doesn't it - that I can actually remember the last holiday we had with really great weather - and not that recently either.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

There's a more complete set of photographs in my image sharing gallery.

On the Good Friday bank holiday we hit heavy traffic and were held up for some time - Herdwick ewes being moved into pastures closer to the farm ready to have their lambs. Mr Boo christened this photo "Where's Woolly?"

This was taken over a week later, but only a few yards away so may well be one of the Herdwick ewes above being brought down to lamb. Each ewe only has a single black lamb.

We've just spent the extended Easter, Royal Wedding and May Bank Holiday period in the English Lake District and with the exception of one evening with a short-lived downpour - late enough that we'd already drawn the curtains and washed up from dinner, so it really didn't trouble us - and one day that was grey and drizzly, we had wall to wall sunshine for the entire 12 days.

I've always had a bit of a fixation about sunlight through trees, it's just one of my very favourite things.

Where we stay in a permanent static caravan on a working farm, the bedroom window is on the north east face of the structure and if I wake up with the sun on my face, we know it's a good start. Unfortunately, that's a somewhat rarer experience that I'd personally like. Every morning, bar one, the sun kissed my cheeks as the alarm went off. Fabulous.

Ramsen / wild garlic; the hedgerows and woodland were thick with it - the flowers just opening - it gives off a gorgeous sweet garlic smell if you brush the leaves as you pass.

But then you have to get up and to it quite promptly as long, static, metal caravans in full sunshine soon turn into baking tins and whilst the day might start with temperatures close to frost-inducing, the air warms alarmingly rapidly as the sun rises and heats the metal sides.

Our neighbour during our stay - taken through the kitchen window - this spot, nestled against one of the damson trees in the orchard, was a morning favourite as the sun warmed up. Soon after I took this, his brother sidled over and snuggled up next to him.

But it is fabulous to eat breakfast with the patio doors wide open and looking out onto the scenery with the spring breeze playing around you.

One of the very most important things to me is walking through woodland and it was just about perfect last week.

A rare moment of stillness in an otherwise very breezy period.

Walking through woodland along a lake shore and coming across small private (albeit rocky) beaches periodically to perch, catch your breath and admire the view, is about a perfect way to spend a spring day.

The weather was just about perfect for us, lots of sunshine, but cool air and on some days, a distinctly brisk and chilly breeze. Just ideal for getting out and walking, although our lunchtime picnics were a little more lively than ideal on some days. When your crisps blow off your plate and you have to hold bread down, you know it's time to retreat indoors to eat. Al fresco dining; I love it.

I wish I could have captured the fragrance for you too. There are few things more perfect to enjoy than dappled sunlight on deciduous ancient woodland with masses of wild bluebells.

The trees pretty much fully opened from bud within the time we were there and there's this short period each spring when the trees are this most magnificent luminous bright spring green - the foliage in the sunlight last week was breathtakingly gorgeous - beech trees especially are the most vibrant fresh colour. Foliage is pristine and un-ravaged by weather, disease or insects and at its most perfect - combined with the lovely clear air and sunshine, the Lakes were about as beautiful as I've ever seen them - and I've spent a lot of my life there in just about every possible set of conditions.

When we arrived, most of the ferns and brackens were unfurling and within a week, were all totally open

I wish I could share with you the fabulous fresh air, scent of the bluebells and the invigorating freshness of woodland in sunshine, but I'll just have to leave you with the photos and your imagination will have to fill in the rest. There's a more complete set of photographs in my image sharing gallery.

I love to sit on this seat around a tree and view the fabulous rock garden with its gorgeous maple trees at Sizergh Castle. I never tire of looking at it.

I love this scene in the castle gardens - the water lillies are just growing.

These flowers are less than an inch in diameter, yet fabulously complex geometric structures.

I was so excited when I came upon this pen of pigs - there must have been 50 assorted pigs of different breeds, colours and sizes, all sunbathing in a pile together - that I almost forgot to take photos - I was too busy trying to stop myself from squealing and jumping up and down in excitement.

Did I mention that I totally love walking through woodland and seeing the sunlight filtering through. I suspect I did.

Garden abstracts

We had another lovely sunny spring weekend and whilst the warm weather makes it feel summery - it's still rather too early to plant summer annuals. Consequently, whilst I'm out in the garden working on it and getting some much needed fresh air and sunshine, there still isn't that much to see - and certainly not much colour - and it looks a tad barren at the moment. I do however grow quite a lot of greenery to keep it looking interesting even without flowers, so I decided to enjoy that for what it was and not worry about the lack of flowers.

Please click on any of the photographs to see a larger view.

I have one spectacular potted hosta that has lovely variegated leaves and it is just opening up - the bits that the snails haven't already consumed are opening in lovely tight spirals.

I kept coming back to the same leaves as the light changed, totally besotted with the lovely shapes and lines.

The textures of the greenery do tend to give rise to some lovely abstracts and textures and that was what I focused on for my garden photography this weekend.

Newly opening ivy leaves which are seemingly quite hairy as they uncurl.

I often do this when out on my lunchtime walk or if the weather isn't good - I pick a theme or subject and concentrate on looking for images to fit that theme - it's good for making you look at things differently and even in limited locations (i.e. my postage stamp sized garden or the familiar walk to the next village) and poor weather, means there's much more to see that you initially think - once you attune your eyes to seeing them.

Not all my foliage is green - my Japanese maple opens with these scrawny thin red leaves that gradually fill out - red at first, turning green as they mature.

I might pick a theme like shadows, reflections, texture etc. and only take photographs that fit this theme - on other occasions I might limit myself to a particular fixed focal length lens or camera mode. It's very liberating to work this way - and good for finding something interesting when in a creative funk like I am at present. Who needs flowers with all this lovely texture and interest in the foliage.

A long growing tendril from my honeysuckle - it's an evergreen, but like everything else in the garden, it starts growing again with gusto once we get some sunshine and longer days.

I like variegated foliage for additional interest.

Some new opening foliage on alpine strawberry plants - making a lovely carpet of texture.

This bud will open out into tiny red and white candy-striped flowers.

The only thing this monkey puzzle is good for is taking photos of - if you lean against it or brush past it it slices you like a razor blade, falling leaves get totally ensnared in the spikes and need removing with surgical precision and protective gear.

An advance taster of summer to come

Here in the UK over the last few days we've had glorious warm sunny weather. Spring has well and truly arrived with the bonus of some unseasonably early warmth. I even managed to get several loads of washing dried outside and put away the same day.

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I have collected lots of interesting pieces of driftwood and bought a bag of large pebbles to scatter around and I love the textural interest they provide in the garden even when nothing much is growing.

It was actually slightly odd to be outside in shirt sleeves, yet be able to see trees that were still bare. But that in itself has now changed, 4 days of sunshine and everything has erupted. That gorgeous new spring green foliage that positively glows in the sunlight.

I have a small corkscrew hazel in a pot and the 'lambs tail' flowers emerge before the foliage, which just emerged with the lovely sunshine we just had.

I love this time of year with the promise of summer ahead but with everything still emerging - lovely pristine foliage in fresh perfect colour, before weather, disease and insects take their toll over the summer months.

I have a large feature hosta in a tall glazed pot which looks stunning until the snails find it. It starts off as purple spikes which gradually unfurl the stripey leaves. I didn't spot this family of greenfly until I looked at the photos.

One of the big advantages of being self-employed and working from home is that I can choose when and where to work - for the most part. Clearly work demands take priority if I'm to keep happy customers, but I do love the warmer weather (shirt-sleeve warm, preferably not hot) when I can work with the back door open and potter in and out of the garden to do work outside when it's possible. I have a favourite bench in the shade that I love to sit at and work. It has been warm enough over the last few days to be able to do that and I was actually remarkably productive.

We even had bees busy at work collecting pollen and making the garden sound summery as well as feel it.

I had several pieces of wire wrapped work that I wanted to replace in my stock and several part finished pieces that needed hand polishing and I got through all of it over the weekend in rests between vigorous garden work - like stripping back a lot of the ivy that grows up the outside of the house. We tend to trim it right back, rather like a severe hair cut and it will re-grow rampantly over summer and still more over winter, ready to be curtailed again next spring. It's a messy, dusty job that we both hate, but always want to get done before we plant the summer annuals as the process drops hundreds of loose leaves in the garden.

I bought two phlox plants last summer that looked stunning when I planted them, but the first flush of flowers finished and they never seemed to get more than the odd further one. I was surprised to see that not only had they survived the hard winter, but were positively thriving. They've gone from tight buds, that I hoped were flowers, to full of these delicate flowers in a matter of days. I love how they uncurl as they open.

I do however have to share my garden. We have a very steep pitched roof which overhangs the house rather more than most houses, giving rise to deep eaves which provide good shelter for nesting birds and each spring and summer we have a whole neighbourhood of nesting house sparrows coming and going under the eaves and into holes where the roof crosses the stone walls. They seem to squeeze themselves through implausibly small holes and vanish out of sight.

For the most part, the sparrows don't mind us being in the garden, they seem to accept that we're going to be there but don't interfere with them and we happily share the space - I'm happy to do so as they're in serious decline and I enjoy being close to them. As the sparrows raise their families, we often get baby birds dropping from the nests when they're fledging and on more than one occasion, one has dropped down the drainpipe from perching on the guttering and we've had to take a section out of the drainpipe to release the trapped baby where they get stuck near a bend in the pipe.

I pointed out that as he wasn't paying rent and I fed him too, he might exercise a little more control over his manners.

But sparrows are pretty vocal, especially when a few gather and they sound like they're having heated discussions. I don't know if they're trying to chase us off, just let us know they're there, or just are chatting. So we often have individual birds that seem more vocal than others and make a big fuss as they come and go. The bird in the photos was one such 2011 resident. Every time he arrived or left, he sang loudly and very pointedly looked at me as he perched inside his own particular front door a few feet above me. Several times he hopped over to a length of the telephone cable coming into the house and would look down at me, very pointedly and loudly having his say.

The lovely weather gave me the opportunity to sit and do some wire wrapping and to polish several pieces in progress. There was a distinct 'heart' theme to my work this weekend, I made several pendants this shape in both copper and Sterling silver and the matching earrings are just waiting to be antiqued. I also finished a series of antiqued copper earrings featuring squiggled infills wrapped to a frame with Sterling silver. The oval pair were for a commission and I made the teardrop pairs at the same time to make available in the shop.