Category: Weekly Photo Challenge

A Nature Photographer’s Vehicles

Post author By David M
Post date 08/07/2020
7 Comments on A Nature Photographer’s Vehicles

This is my light hearted contribution to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Anything to do with cars and trucks.

A look at a couple of this photographer’s dirty vehicles.

My ex British Telecom Bedford van being used as a mobile hide ( blind). The rear of the van was gutted so I could sleep in it and there was a mount for a tripod head attached to the inside of the drivers door.

Ford Ranger picku

The Ford Ranger pickup truck I drove in Saskatchewan. After this photo was taken it was fitted with a fibreglass tonneau cover to allow me to store “stuff” in the truck box. When I moved from Saskatchewan to Ontario it was ridiculously difficult swapping the Saskatchewan license plates for Ontario plates.

Tags Bedford van, Canada, Cee's Fun Foto Challenge, England, Ford Ranger, vehicles

Weekly Photo Challenge

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Summer

Post author By David M
Post date 07/07/2020
11 Comments on Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: Summer

This is my contribution to the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge which for the month of July has themes of the seasons, the first is Summer.

As the month has a theme I decided to go with a theme for each of the season posts. I decided to go with one bird, one scenic and one flora or fauna subject for each season and to make the three photos as varied as possible.

Tuesday Photo Challenge - Connect

An American White Pelican on a section of the Last Mountain Lake National Wildlife Area in Saskatchewan, Canada. Taken while sitting in the water to keep cool in the summer of 1999.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: A River Runs Through It

The range light at the mouth of the Saugeen River in Southampton on the Lake Huron shoreline in Ontario, Canada. The 30th photo taken with my then new Olympus E-410 in the summer of 2007.

Throwback Thursday: 11th June 2020

Two Common Frogs waiting to catch insects visiting the Thyme flowers in a Hatherton, Cheshire, England garden in the summer of 1988.

Tags American White Pelican, Cheshire, Common Frog, Hatherton, Lake Huron, Last Mountain Lake, Lens-Artists, Ontario, Range Light, Saskatchewan, Saugeen River, shoreline, Southampton, Thyme

Weekly Photo Challenge

WWE #35: Great Crested Grebes

Post author By David M
Post date 06/07/2020
8 Comments on WWE #35: Great Crested Grebes

This is my contribution to Jez Braithwaite’s Water Water Everywhere #35 Photo Challenge and a continuation of my Grebe species theme for the challenge.

This is a pair of Great Crested Grebes performing part of their long and quite complex courtship display on Hurleston Reservoir near Nantwich in southern Cheshire, England.

Throwback Thursday: 19th March 2020

Tags bird, courtship, display, Great Crested Grebe, Hurleston Reservoir, WWE

Weekly Photo Challenge

Cosmic Photo Challenge: A Wet Weekend

Post author By David M
Post date 06/07/2020
6 Comments on Cosmic Photo Challenge: A Wet Weekend

This is my contribution to the Cosmic Photo Challenge prompt A Wet Weekend.

When the prompt was posted we were having a sunny and hot weekend so I was going to have to resort to my archives.

Then I remembered the 52 week photo project I did in 2018. We had a couple of wet weekends that summer.

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge: All Wet

A young male Rose-breasted Grosbeak in the rain in early summer.

A solitary raindrop.

A raindrop on the end of a branch taken while waiting for the Rose-breasted Grosbeak above.

Raccoon with spiky wet fur.

This wet, bedraggled Raccoon wandered out of the bush after 24 hours of rain on the first weekend of the summer.

Tags branch, CosPhoChal, male, Raccoon, rain, raindrop, Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Weekly Photo Challenge

Friendly Friday: Nostalgia

Post author By David M
Post date 05/07/2020
9 Comments on Friendly Friday: Nostalgia

This is my contribution to the Friendly Friday Challenge: Nostalgia.

I’m going to take a sideways look at this challenge with a post partly about nostalgia and partly about camera equipment.

It’s now 40 years since I left art school after studying photography. In those 40 years there has been huge advances in equipment and techniques.

Sometimes I will look back at shots in my film archives and consider how much easier some of the shots would be to get today. Or I will be aware of how much better the quality of the images would be compared to the film stocks available when the shots were taken.

So this post is about looking back at some favourite photos and considering how some of my photos could be improved with modern equipment or techniques.

Tuesday Photo Challenge - Number

In the late 1970s and early 1980s I was photographing a variety of motorsports. In those days 200 ISO was the highest colour film speed a lot of editors would accept. One of my current mirrorless cameras has a base of 200 ISO. Also, lenses are faster with better anti-reflection coatings.

Weekly Prompts: Story

Nowadays I would build a LED panel into the top of the nestbox for more even, diffused light.

One Word Sunday: Drama

Nowadays there are techniques for dealing with high contrast lighting like this. I can take multiple exposures and combine them to keep detail in the highlights and open up the shadows.

Tags 24 hour motorcycle race, clouds, Eurasian Blue Tit, feeding, Friendly Friday, Le Mans, light beam, Loch Arkaig, nestbox

Weekly Photo Challenge

Umbrella

Post author By David M
Post date 05/07/2020
10 Comments on Umbrella

This is my contribution to the One Word Sunday prompt Umbrella.

When I read the prompt I thought of the umbrella on our patio table. We put it in the table in the spring and I don’t think it has been unfurled yet this year.

So I decided to shoot some abstracts of the folded umbrella. I started shooting them in monochrome but quickly switched to colour as I liked the contrast between the blue fabric of the umbrella and the green vegetation in the background.

One Word Sunday: Umbrella