Sunday 18th December 2011

The musical accompaniment to the Powderkegs Border Morris side.

100mm, 1/200s (auto from aperture priority), f/5.6, ISO 800

Saturday 5th November 2011

Banjo love!

33mm, 1/80s, f/4, ISO 800

Saturday 17th September 2011

Self portrait, dressed up for my brother's wedding in a home-made dress and shawl with newly dyed hair.

4.6mm, 1/800s, f/7.1. (auto)

Wednesday 7th September 2011

Another music night at the Greyhound, unfortunately camera was still in manual focus but it's the best photo I got today. It's not a shot I'm at all happy with, it's too chaotic and jumbled, but at least the wide angle and its distortion still sort of lead you in to the person playing guitar.

10mm, 1/13s, f/13, ISO 640

Saturday 28th May 2011

Very pleased with this photo! It's some species of grasshopper, haven't quite identified which one as it didn't have wings and all the ones in my book do. I love his little half-smiling, half-coy expression.

[Update - Research tells me that the lack of wings is because this is a grasshopper nymph, i.e. a youngster rather than an adult, also known as a hopper. Grasshoppers go through a series of transformations known as instars, where they moult their shells, before they take their final adult form. Nymphs have fully grown limbs but their wings, colour, body size aren't developed].

70mm (approx), 1/25s, f/11 (approx), ISO 400

Wednesday 30th March 2011

You can't beat a bit of folk at the monthly Boat Band night in Stoke.

92mm, 1/6s (auto from aperture priority), f/5.0, ISO 800

Monday 7th February 2011

32mm, 1/50s, f/5.6, ISO 400

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowed hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.

Opens a door in Heaven;
From skies of glass
A Jacob's ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o'er the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.

Before them fleets the shower,
And burst the buds,
And shine the level lands,
And flash the floods;
The stars are from their hands
Flung through the woods,

The woods with living airs
How softly fanned,
Light airs from where the deep,
All down the sand,
Is breathing in his sleep,
Heard by the land.

O, follow, leaping blood,
The season's lure!
O heart, look down and up,
Serene, secure,
Warm as the crocus cup,
Like snow-drops, pure!

Past, Future glimpse and fade
Through some slight spell,
A gleam from yonder vale,
Some far blue fell;
And sympathies, how frail,
In sound and smell!

Till at thy chuckled note,
Thou twinkling bird,
The fairy fancies range,
And, lightly stirred,
Ring little bells of change
From word to word.

For now the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And thaws the cold, and fills
The flower with dew;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The poets too.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Early Spring"

Saturday 5th February 2011

This was taken at Peveril Castle in Castleton on a fairly wet, grey day that provided a few interesting photos despite the weather, mostly due to the great company.

29mm, 1/100s, f/4.0, ISO 400

Sunday 16th January 2011

Whilst walking in the Cairngorms today we were gifted with a sight of a pair of Ptarmigan, peacefully pecking about in the snow just close enough to grab a photo of. I'm glad I didn't settle with my first few photos as the computer revealed them to be blurred, thankfully I thought to creep a bit closer.

250mm, 1/500, f/6.3 (auto from shutter priority), ISO 200 (auto)

Saturday 15th January 2011

This little chap is a real cutie, and seemed happier upside-down than the right way up! He hasn't had the easiest start in life (Findlay's story) but it doesn't seem to have bothered him in the slightest.

27mm, 1/200, f/3.5 (auto from shutter priority), ISO 400 (auto)

Saturday 8th January 2011

There were moods and expressions a plenty at a ballroom and latin dance competition I watched today. I love this shot of a young couple (who I think won their category), they look like they're enjoying every minute of it and taking joy in reaping the satisfaction from all the hard work they put in to get where they did.

70mm, 1/125s, f/5.0 (auto from shutter priority), ISO 400 (auto)

Saturday 1st January 2011

Diving right in with the first photo... the mood here is one of a happy pooch!

39mm, 1/6s (auto from aperture priority), f/4.0, ISO 1600 (auto)