Sauntering Vaguely Downwards
I have worked my way through the remaining photos from last year, and have uploaded them all to Flickr. Small selection below, mostly flowers. I’m rather fond of the Lisianthus photos (first two and in the header), because I like they way the buds are tightly curled up, and then the flowers unwind going through several stages of shapes. Almost my favourite flower, pipped to the post by Lilacs, because of the scent.
The UK heatwave has fizzled out (for now, with the current climate who knows what will actually happen), it’s under 20°C, grey and windy. I am a very happy bunny as far as that goes, just feeling generally tired. Being able to sleep without wanting to climb out of my own skin to cool off will probably help. Creatively speaking I got a few photos taken before it rained again, so I’m sharing a few here, the rest are up on Flickr. Photos below, along with crafty bits.
Not as many butterflies around as I’d like there to be, hopefully they’ll make more of an appearance as Summer wears on. Yesterday an area around some Marjoram/Oregano was being visited by a bunch of Gatekeepers (female and male, some flirting going on), a few Small Coppers, a Ringlet and a Small Tortoiseshell. There were also quite a few bees, but they weren’t hanging around on a particular flower long enough to get many useful shots. The flowers are small, so I suppose it makes sense. There are some photos of flowers mixed in, along with Jake. He took up residence on the old bench yesterday, haven’t worked out where he’s been today. Enjoy, and find the rest up on Flickr!
All caught up on photos (for now), I’ve got some new pens to play with and swatch, so that’ll keep me occupied for a bit.
Second batch of photos! Almost done, last batch tomorrow. A few of ‘name the daisy’ titles because there are so many varieties that they’re easy to mix up, and I’m an idiot who failed to take a photo of the plant label. I took the melon pics yesterday on a whim. Definitely prefer them to the watermelon pics. The rest of this lot are up on Flickr for your perusal.
I went into town to do shopping yesterday, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that I stopped off on a verge along the main road into town near the GP surgery to take a load of photographs of the poppies, daisies, thistles and teasels, I would have been very annoyed and regretted that decision. As is was, I got a new favourite photo out of that batch, the teasel with purple flower buds that’s set as the featured image.
Some of the images are from the garden, but the majority are from beside a main road and not, shockingly, on a verge next to a bridle path. As always, more up on Flickr, and by more I mean a lot more. It took hours to sort through these yesterday, which is why the blog post is today. Now I’m off to do things with glue and string.
Playing with a light purple background. It’s just a sheet of card with my little LED globe lights to brighten things up a bit, I’m pretty pleased with the results so I’ll experiment with more colours at some point. I may also invest in a light box with LED strips as it’s going to provide better and more consistent lighting than positioning what basically amounts to night lights for kids. I have done peacock feathers in the past, but we’re talking 10 years ago with a lower resolution camera, so they were due a re-do. The feathers were cheap with the tops chopped off, so I might get some better feathers and do them again.
As usual, there are a whole bunch more up on Flickr, so head on over there. I’m also posting random stuff quite a bit on Instagram, so feel free to follow me over there for shots of goth as heck ice creams, views from hammocks, and Jake being fluffy (though he’s been hiding in his nests to escape the heat, so less of those right now).
In fun news, I’m on holiday for a week now, so hoping to get some art and craft projects done. After sleeping. And replacing the laptop fan (may the gods help me).
I wasn’t planning on taking photographs today. In fact, I told myself this morning that I wasn’t going to because I had other creative things to be getting on with. That resolve lasted for about an hour, until I went out to get something from the car and spotted new triffids, so grabbed the camera. Then I thought I’d take advantage of the bright, blue sky and sun to take some pictures of flowers in the sky, at which point I was doomed because there were a lot of pictures to go through. So, hey, another photography blog post!
The great thing about these photos is that they look epic but are really easy to do. Backdrop that doesn’t have shadows cast on it, bright natural light from the sun, hold a flower up with your fingers, snap a macro shot. The hardest part is that your arms ache after a while, and you need to wear a cap and/or sunglasses to avoid the glare. There are a whole bunch more up on Flickr, along with the few aforementioned regular triffid pics.
I finished work, sorted some images, then fell asleep for five hours without meaning to. Clearly I needed the sleep, and now all the images are sorted and posted. There are the normal flowering triffids, and also strawberries. It’s a journey from the plant to ending up in my fruit infuser bottle filled with lemonade. They were delicious.
I’m going back to bed. More strawberry and flower pictures are up on Flickr.
Way more triffids than I thought snuck onto my memory card, so it took a while to sort them. There are more here because there are a whole load more in this batch up on Flickr. Mostly flowers, some cherries that may never get to ripen because the birds will be on them like locusts at the first hint of being edible, and some faded wooden sign shots. The wooden sign was originally made by me about 10 years ago, and was eventually replaced a couple of years ago with a more durable one – it hangs out so delivery drivers can actually see it easily. It was printed letters on wood covered in sealant, so I’m genuinely surprised it lasted as long as it did and the sign is actually legible. The mock orange is a different variety to the previous photos I’ve taken, blooming later. Most notable for being under my bedroom window along with a wisteria (which is really late this year, the photos I’ve taken have all been from the one around the back) and a honeysuckle. Smells amazing at night.
This was the photography post I was planning on making today, before Jake decided to steal the limelight. As usual, there are a few more up on Flickr, though not as many as I’d have limed because the battery ran out. Jake videos use up all the juice, he’s decidedly not cute and is very unhelpful (and it’s totally not that the battery was due a charge anyway *cough*).