Winter weather (part 3...)

Winter weather (part 3...), a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Well, after rain and snow, wind seems appropriate! Our town is on a bit of a hill, and feels like a bit of a wind trap at times. Challenging from a photography perspective - unless you have a serious tornado you usually can't see the wind, only its effects. So here's William's little ladybird windmill being blown around!

[About the photo: Couldn't face going outside, so its a long lens (300mm) shot from the window. 1/30th second exposure was slow enough to get the motion blur I wanted. Of course, 1/30th at 300mm means a tripod is needed...]

Winter weather (part 2...)

Well after rain, snow should be easy!  :-)

I love taking snow shots.  Snowy days in London always used to see me down in Crystal Palace Park with the camera (thanking heavens that London transport is so pathetic that a snowflake on the railway line effectively meant a day off work as I couldn't get to the office...).  Here's one of my favourite shots from back then. The snow can freak out the camera's metering system (it expects gray, it gets white, so it under exposes to make the white look gray) but that can be dealt with.

But taking a shot of it actually snowing was a bit more fun. Main problem was the shutter speed.  Too fast and the snow is white specs - hard to see unless its snowing really hard (it wasn't). Too slow and you just get too many white trails. In the end I settled on a shutter speed of 1/25th second - about the limit of what I could hand hold with my 24mm lens.

In the end, it didn't snow that long and it didn't stick around, much to the relief of my wife!

A snowy day....

Next challenge? Wind!  :-)

Winter weather (part 1...)

It feels like we've had a pretty awful run of weather lately,have barely been able to get out into the garden, let alone do anything.  So here are a few weather photos until it improves and I can get started properly!

Its always hard trying to effectively show weather in a photo unless its something obvious like snow or fog. I'd been pondering how to show it, but then one of the most annoying things about the new house actually came in handy...

This is our security light.  In theory, a passive infrared turns it on when it detects heat.  In reality, its far too sensitive, and just having the heating on can cause the light to be on all night. And of course, when the previous owners fitted it, did they fit a switch inside to control it?  Of course not. Its wired straight into the lighting ring main.  Even masking off part of the IR sensor with tape has made no difference, I dread to think what its doing to my electricity bill.

So all in all, annoying, but it did enable me to capture a shot of the rain the other night...

 Rain, rain and more rain....

No brainer...

Just add lard..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

Let me see -

• £2.50 for a half coconut filled with bird seed and fat from the garden centre (seems to be about the going rate...)

      Or 

• 59p for a block of lard to make several refills and a few pence worth of bird seed 

Just call me Scrooge, but I think I'll be refilling the old one thanks!

[About the photo: Macro shot obviously, but I'm playing around with my manual remote flashguns. One flash positioned behind the black background pointing at the ceiling to provide the bounced fill light, and a second one on low power coming in from the left to add just a little illumination to the lard as I pour it.]

Seeds of optimism...

Seeds of optimism..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

November... Possibly not the best time to be planting things (my garlic aside...). But these were described as winter lettuces, suitable for unheated greenhouses or cold frames, so I thought I'd give them a go. They're currently in seedling trays on our window ledge, but I'll try some of them outside once they're a bit bigger. I suspect the hole in roof of the greenhouse might mean its a bit chilly for them - I really need to get it repaired!

But at least the lettuces are doing better than the carrots. Again, meant to be planted out in October / November and harvested in spring. Have planted some in the raised bed, some in a pot in the greenhouse, and some on the window ledge - no signs of life yet...

[About the photo - a macro shot (the seedlings are only a couple of cm tall at the moment!) lit by a remote flash off to one side, with a baffle to stop the flash lighting the black background. Not completely happy with it - feels a little dark and the depth of field isn't quite enough. Might re-shoot when they get a bit bigger.]

Grass... Never where you want it...

The grass is always greener..., a photo by Craig Richardson on Flickr.

So I've paid out heaven knows how much to turf over parts of the lawn that had been overgrown by moss, or killed by the expanding borders... But you drop some bird seed down some cracks in your pavement, and look what happens!

Next time I'm letting William help me re-fill the bird feeders I'll have to be more careful. Still, its an interesting lesson for him as he can actually see the seed, the roots and the plant...

[About the photo: another 105mm macro shot. Hardest part was getting the depth of field I wanted so all the seeds were in focus - my shutter speed was dropping and I ended up getting the tripod out. Luckily the Manfrotto tripod I use can get down really low!]

Leylandii - Before and After

Leylandii - before and after...

Okay, I've learned something this morning... We had our Leylandii conifers trimmed this weekend - trying to get them back into some sort of shape after a couple of years neglect (see before and after shots).  

Aside from the more commonly known legal aspects (they grow up to a metre a year, and in 2005 were allegedly responsible for a large proportion of over 17,000 people being at loggerheads over high hedges), the history of the plant is fascinating and did you know it has a vague link back to Crystal Palace?

In the 1840s, the Leyland family rebuilt and redesigned the gardens at Leighton Hall in Wales. The gardener planted two trees close together that would normally be found hundreds of miles apart -Monterey Cypress from California and Alaskan Cypress.  In 1888 hybrid cross was discovered - the female cones of Nootka Cypress were fertilised by pollen from Monterey Cypress.  The result was the Leylandii Cyprus. There are several varieties, but as they're all infertile, all of the trees are a result of cuttings that can be traced back to those original plants. 

The link to Crystal Palace? The gardener that laid out the gardens at Leighton Hall was Edward Kemp - a student of Sir Joseph Paxton.  Paxton was of course the creator of the Crystal Palace, originally built in Hyde Park in 1851 but later moved to the area of South London that is still known as Crystal Palace. 

Okay, I accept its a bit or a tenuous link!