This is my contribution to the Friendly Friday Challenge: Splendour in the Grass prompt.
I had a couple of ideas for the challenge and decided to keep it simple and local with two very different photos of grass taken a few yards apart on my walks around the neighborhood.
This is my contribution to the Friendly Friday Challenge: Close Examination.
Hooks on a Lesser Burdock seed head. Where the inventor of Velcro got the idea.
Detail of the cap of a Fly Agaric fungi. The classic red Toadstool so popular with the illustrators of children’s books.
This is my contribution to the Friendly Friday Photo Challenge: Essential Tips and Tools.
Having got interested in photography in the mid 1970s, studied it in the late 1970s and working as a professional from 1980 some of my essential tools date back decades.
My Tenba Pro Pak P595 in the snow in the early 1980s. Having purchased a Tenba P595 when they were first imported into the U.K. I have grown to appreciate camera bags with easy access to the equipment. It makes them quick and easy to work out of.
My Domkenstein F-6 in the snow a couple of years ago. Tenba stopped making the Pro Pak bags in the mid 2000s so when I needed a smaller bag a few years ago I picked up a Domke F-6. The reason I call it Domkenstein is because it has a Ciesta padded insert divided up with Tenba dividers and a third party memory foam shoulder pad.
One of my UNI-LOC tripods and my Domke F-10 JD on the Colpoy’s Bay shoreline at sunrise. I am a habitual tripod user with a selection of models used in different situations and conditions. My newest tripod is now 24 years old. The UNI-LOC dates back to mid 1990s, I’m not sure if the company is in business anymore.
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.
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.
Nowadays I would build a LED panel into the top of the nestbox for more even, diffused light.
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.
This is my contribution to the Friendly Friday Photo Challenge: Summer Traditions.
I had a couple of ideas for the challenge before thinking of the traditional Canada Day fireworks. I don’t know where or if there will be fireworks on Canada Day this year so here’s a look back at some from previous years.
As the 1st July fell within the week of this challenge I delayed posting until Canada Day.
Canada Day fireworks in Bluewater Park on the South Bruce Peninsula, Ontario.
Canada Day fireworks on Monument Hill in the village of Punnichy, Saskatchewan.
Canada Day fireworks on the Lake Huron shoreline in Southampton, Ontario.
This is my first post for Macro Monday which will probably become a weekly feature. After two years of Monochrome Monday posts I thought it was time for a change.
This is also my contribution to the Friendly Friday Challenge: Unusual.
This is a rare colour variation of the Grey Dagger Moth caterpillar photographed in Hatherton, Cheshire, England in the early 1990s.
The very pale bluish stripe down the centre of the back of the caterpillar is normally a bright yellow. When I found and photographed this specimen I had to do some research. I could find no reference to this colour variation in any of my books so I went to see an entomologist friend to see what we could find in his reference books. In the end we found a reference to the colour variation in a 19th century reference book.
This is my contribution to the Friendly Friday Photo Challenge: In Transit.
Once again I am playing fast and loose with the prompt with photos before or after some form of travel.
No longer in transit. There was no warning signs saying that the road was impassable. Photographed near Raymore, Saskatchewan, Canada.
About to be in transit. One of the campsites at the Le Mans race circuit in France after the end of a 24 hour motorcycle endurance race.
In transit to Flowerpot Island off the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada. Taking a glass bottomed boat tour to view some of the underwater wrecks before visiting Flowerpot Island.
