Stockwood Discovery – Autumn

The gardens are being prepared for the next season, but this afternoon did not seem like autumn, it was like a warm summer’s day, and I felt hot rather than cool, in part due to the relatively high humidity, but also due to carrying a fairly weighty camera bag then running back and forth while trying to check out further use of the CamRanger. I am still facing re-registration issues, but I am now directly in contact with the ever-helpful developer, Dave Pawlowski, as he has invited me to beta test the product, and somehow I will endeavour to help him cure this irritating recurrence, he also says he is working hard to help me overcome a related missing component related to WiFi. This is already a very polished combination of a hardware device and app that allows both the capture of images remotely from the iPad, or in the Client mode allows the iPad to show the shots on its screen as they are taken remotely.

It was in this mode I was trying to gain further experience by allowing others to see what I was shooting as I went around with just the camera and CamRanger, moments after I had taken them. I want to be able to use both the Remote Control facility where the camera is on a tripod and aimed at either a landscape or wildlife, or close-up on some insect, so I do not represent a distraction, or I am simply trying not to cause camera shake yet able to focus accurately and appropriately for a landscape. In other situations similar to a recent networking event, where it was handy to leave the iPad in view as I took photos of the attendees, I use the Client mode. I was asked at that event whether it were possible to send the images to the large screen they were using, to which I responded: “Not presently; but that I was hopeful”. A further use is to facilitate post processing by reviewing the small Jpegs on the iPad alongside the Mac and doing the culling that much quicker.

Going around the gardens at first there seemed little on display to create a worthy gallery of images, but on closer inspection, both literally and metaphorically I was pleasantly surprised. There were no less than three specimens of the striped red, gold and green beetle resembling a bejewelled ladybird on the last of the lavender being cut back by Jan and her apprentice gardener, Sam. Seemingly it was not an insect they had come across before whereas I had seen some before, though I cannot recall precisely where. It turns out it is chrysolina americana. It seemed a shame to be evicting some of the established insects and losing the wonderful aroma that pervaded the air where they were working. I did later spot a lone clump in isolation.

I also spied a lone and careworn butterfly, some funghi, some still lush ferns, some sunflowers and bright red, and bright white berries of differing species in the gardens, before insanely visiting the greenhouse sauna to see grapes and the voluptuous leaf shapes and cacti. When I came out I was as if I had been caught in a monsoon – I was sodden!