just rambling about … enjoy the "post"-cards
I like capturing details with my macro lens … and most often it’s insects among flowers, like this one from my friend’s garden in Suffolk. And of course, a bee isn’t an insect !
Weekly Photo Challenge: Details
~ Spotted Cow
We walked from Amalfi up to the town of Ravello, through the lemon groves and forest. It was lovely and lush, although we did get rained on in various phases! Nevertheless, the sun came out when we arrived at the top and we visited the Villa Rufolo. We had been set a photo competition to take the photo on the front of the tourist brochure. It was a mad scurry around the gardens, interspersed with “wows” when anyone came to the sea view from a different angle. I can safely guarantee that pretty much everyone will get the picture postcard shot.
~ Spotted Cow
7 Day Nature Challenge. Day 3
There’s nothing I like better than cutting herbs from the garden (read planters) and cooking with them. They smell lovely in the heat of the sun. And rosemary is hardy, which is great for a pretty useless gardener like me.
The lovely Joanne from Coffee Fuels My Photography invited me to do the 7 Day Nature Challenge. Normally, I’d nominate someone in turn, but I’m on holiday away from London and might not be able to keep up with comments and all that. So, I invite anyone who is keen to take part too.
~ Spotted Cow
7 Day Nature Challenge. Day 2
I’ve never visited a bluebell wood and I’m thinking that I should make an effort to do so this spring time. Mental note to research it. Tips welcome.
The lovely Joanne from Coffee Fuels My Photography invited me to participate in the nature challenge, and I hope you’re inspired to join in too.
~ Spotted Cow
It is said that a good photographer can take a picture of an everyday object and make it look interesting. Well, I haven’t got to that stage yet, although I am positively surprised at some of the images that I snap somewhat randomly. Like this one, standing outside a Bali hotel, waiting for a taxi.
My intention was to get a picture of the waxy leaves overlaid, one over the other. When I looked at the image on a bigger screen later, I was pleasantly surprised to see the green patterns, shading and veins that I had also captured. It made me think that I should make a mini project of photographing random everyday things.
~ Spotted Cow
I’m a novice at gardening and acquired some planters with herbs and grasses last year. Low maintenance gardening for a non-gardener. Difficult to get it wrong, I was told. Well, the planters look a tad spartan after the winter months. However, my green-fingered friends tell me that everything will sprout forth in abundance in spring and I will be surprised at the lush-ness. So, I am looking forward with great anticipation!
~ Spotted Cow
I was looking over my summer photos and was amused by a lost teddy bear in the garden. It belonged to one of the dogs.
~ Spotted Cow
Yes, I’m still in the garden. It’s that thing called a summer cold which dragged me down for 2 weeks (!) and the only place I have enough energy to get out to is the herb garden. I know that I’m supposed to pick the flower heads off the basil because it makes the leaves taste bitter. But I’ve failed in this regard and photographing them seemed less labourious. It’s less exciting without the bee, but far more delicate.
~ Spotted Cow
I was using the macro lens in the garden (again), set on manual, aiming to get a precise focus on whatever it was. Ahh, a bee landed on the basil flower. Perfect. When I sat down to edit the images, I realised the level of detail I had on the bee … because of course, I was standing at a respectful distance. Seeing the bee’s eye, its bee’s knees and all its limbs in high definition gave me a case of the heebie-jeebies. Grimace.
Click to see the photo at large and tell me if you feel the same.
~ Spotted Cow
This week’s photo challenge Inspiration theme lingered with me for a bit after I posted my image. It reminded me that greenery enhances creativity. If your workspace doesn’t look out onto a lovely garden or lush forest, don’t despair. Surround your work area with pot plants. The empirical studies suggest that you will have 15% more ideas, and more creative ones at that. I’m off to water my plants now.
~ Spotted Cow
I love taking pictures of nature with a macro lens because you can get really close-up and detailed. The thing to remember is that you have to be very precise with your point of focus if there are varying depths of field in the composition. And then, I guarantee that you’ll be amazed at the sharpness. The best thing to do is experiment with shifting the point of focus and you’ll get a variety of results, at least one of which you will be extremely pleased with.
Contrast this with the rainy day pictures I took in my folks’ Sydney garden. I had forgotten to bring the macro lens on the trip and my standard travel zoom lens couldn’t achieve the same life-size magnification.
~ Spotted Cow
Ahh, spring mornings in the garden. The shift in season brings flowers … and insects !
~ Spotted Cow
I cannot tell you how terrified I was taking this photo. The bee was enormous, and even though I was using a zoom lens (100mm), I was still standing a bare arm’s length from it. But I had a bee in my bonnet – pun intended! – about getting it in the picture with the flowers.
This spring photo for the Weekly Photo Challenge was shot in the lovely garden of Casa Ana, a guest house in the Alpujarras in southern Spain. While I was scrolling through Ana’s site, I saw a couple of my photos on her garden page. How lovely. I had forgotten that I had given her a set of my images to use. It’s made my day !
Wandering Cows 
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