Stockwood Discovery Centre, National Wildlife Photography Exhibition

The Wildlife Exhibition offered an ideal opportunity to visit both the Gardens and the Gallery, so I arranged with John Sentinella, and Jan Tysoe to meet up there. It provided the chance to view the stunning work of others in the exhibition area, and the opportunity to take our own photographs of the bounty of new life within the garden at the beginning of Spring this year.

I arrived first, and John who had parked elsewhere joined soon after, with Jan coming in after a spell doing Pilates. I had taken a brief stroll around before their arrival.

We all took a look at the fine work of others, and John later left us after the wander around the Exhibition, Jan and I stayed longer before going around the gardens in the search of subjects that caught our eye. It will be interesting later to see Jan’s images, to see what I might have missed, because she has the advantage of knowing what is likely at this early time of the season. I must also find out what differences she found between a lens I lent her to compare with the one she uses.

On the whole we were lucky with the light and the weather, and later we adjourned to the cafeteria for a hot chocolate to catch up. We parted and I made a call to a fellow photographer, Colin Bowles to see whether I might visit him and his wife, to catch up on their news before heading back up to Marston Moretaine, and it was a good move because from there it proved a really good trip back, rather than up the crowded M1. Altogether, a very productive and enjoyable day.

Stockwood Discovery Centre – Is Spring on its Way?

I met up with a former gardener for the gardens at the Stockwood Discovery Centre, Jan, to see what our chances were for capturing in photographs, any early signs of the upcoming Spring – at first sight with much of last year’s former glory removed along with any weeds that survived our lacklustre Winter, the prospect looked doomed to failure, but when we looked more closely, there were many signs of new growth, even signs of bloom – there were small clusters of Snowdrops in a couple of different spots.

At this time of the year without the leaf coverage some of the intricate twists of the branches can be seen to form beautiful shapes which become lost to sight when the leaves arrive. Some of the leaves on show on the day were variegated which always adds to their beauty especially when these fresh delicate colours are set against the more saturated and darker colours of older leaves. Grasses from the previous season dry and curl, forming interesting whorls, but are often difficult to capture when there is a wind as one naturally wants minimal depth of field to isolate them from their background, but you are fighting to  get them with minimal movement – high failure rate – but I did get a shot!

Occasionally, I would look around and Jan would be nowhere to be seen, yet on another occasion, I would spot her in deep concentration moving in close to some plant that caught her eye, it was interesting to note how she spotted items of engineering interest in much the same way I spot small details that have no other connection than the shape or the light falling on them sparks the idea for a picture.

We eventually decided that the warmth of the restaurant was calling, so we sat and chatted with one of her friends over cups of hot chocolate and looked on the backs of our cameras at shots we had taken, then headed for the exhibition area where the British Wildlife photos were on display, which were stunning, we also took a wander around the display of vehicles where I learned yet more of Jan’s varied past employment with Electrolux and her time at the Riding Stables in this same complex. I learned a little bit about the nature of the chain on a horse’s bridle and bit, when she spotted it had not been fitted correctly, and duly corrected it and explained its use. As I write this piece I learn that the shot she took of  the Prancing Horse adorning the front of the Steam Engine is now a card for a friend of hers, so already her visit to Stockwood has been profitable!

When we then headed out the sun had been out for a while, but it had had no effect on the temperature, it was bitter still, and the wind was far more noticeable once we were beyond the walls of the Gardens, Jan returned my Macro lens, but I was sad to learn the lens I spotted and suggested she might find useful had not met with the same pleasure as the micro she had borrowed from me.

The time spent was enjoyable and I came away with some interesting images despite my first impressions of what we might find.

A Mentoring Session at Stockwood

Jan Tysoe has been an Important Gardener at the Discovery Centre in Luton for some years, and recently retired. During the time I have been visiting she has helped me by showing me some of the plants she has tended, and often rescued. I made a special visit to the gardens to help her when she came, not to labour, but to take photographs with her newly-acquired digital SLR camera and lens – I was here to return the favour.

Jan texted me to say that she was by the Water Feature, so on arrival, I headed there wending my way through the throngs of families by the cafeteria and the play area. She had a friend with her sitting on the nearby bench, I joined them and hand Jan a small card device I had made specially to get across the idea of Reciprocity; the way to maintain the same Exposure, by balancing the size of the Aperture against the length of Time the shutter was open for any given amount of Brightness in the image. I then explained why she might wish to choose a particular Aperture so as to define the Depth of Field, and use this to make the subject of her photograph stand out from its background.

I had created two strips which could be moved in tandem for any given exposure to display a pairing of Shutter Speed and Apertures and explained why she might choose a wide aperture such as f/2.8 for a narrow depth or f/22 for a wider depth, I only touched lightly upon the limitations of the shutter speed for the freezing of any motion. I gave her the device to work with later. I did however move to some nearby blooms to explain how for any focussed distance the aperture chosen defines a depth that extends slightly further behind than in front of the focussed point. At this juncture I also explained that for this exercise setting Aperture Priority was important and set the camera for around f/8 and to give her a good chance of successes, I left the ISO speed at 1600˚ which was where I found it, but did say in passing that was a tad high for the camera body I had given her a while earlier, a Canon 10D and might result in some noise in the pictures.

I also tried to impress her the importance of framing her picture and using half-pressure on the shutter button to acquire focus from the centre, then place the subject within the frame. To get this message across, I asked her to place the flower first on the right of the frame, then the left and explained how this might be important for composition and possibly later to add some text for say, a greetings card.

After this, we began strolling around the gardens, with my occasionally giving further suggestions as to viewpoint and backgrounds, or when she was intent on a particular picture grabbing a few of my own and sometimes showing how and why I had taken the individual frame.

The time we spent was all too short, but hopefully helpful, and I look forward to her results; meantime here is the small gallery I created at the time.

Stockwood Discovery Centre – August 28th 2015

I had not been down to the Centre since I moved house and wanted to catch up with Jan Tysoe. I was not prepared for her news however – Alex Hyne, whom I had known during her period of working at Luton Hoo’s Walled Garden and met again at Hyde Hall, had died earlier in the year. Coupled with that Jan’s husband had been diagnosed with Throat Cancer and though on the mend had had to endure considerable pain when operated upon. For this reason she was only working for half the day so she could visit him in hospital in the afternoon. Hence Jan allowed me first into one of the locked greenhouses. Jan also let me know that one of her volunteers, whom I also knew, Bridie had retired.

I was very envious of Jan when she told me she had twice seen a Hummingbird Hawk Moth in the Gardens, which is something I have longed to photograph. She managed to get a shot of it on her phone, so has promised to let me see it. Why am I so envious? Both my youngest brother and my son-in-law have both seen them and captured them in photographs, whereas I have only spotted one briefly at Luton Hoo and just not had a chance to take a photograph because it was too far away and flew away and over a greenhouse!

I did however get up close and personal with a bee today! I met a new volunteer in the long greenhouse, one Keith and I believe much of what I photographed today was as a result of his earlier handiwork in planting them.

Although it was very warm, the greenhouse had all its windows open, so it was very comfortable for a change. I hope that today’s pictures can give pleasure to Jan.

Gardening Book Delivery to Stockwood

I have now exchanged Contracts and am due to move to Marston Moretaine any day now, so my days, nights and times I did not know existed, have been filled by filling – filling boxes; the end result being that a four-bedroomed house has been reduced to a series of corridors between stacks – of boxes!
In order to achieve this Nirvana, I have reduced wall-to-ceiling bookcases to the building blocks of a cardboard city of skyscraper stacks of boxes. Where some have a small room in their house they term a boxroom, I have a boxhouse! It offered the opportunity to do some reading-weeding and provide an abundant supply of very random books to the Caddington Allotment Library, being successfully built by one Helen Taylor.
After the first room's bookcase was emptied I delivered a mere three boxes, but at that time I knew there were to be more, and a couple of back-breaking days later, another few boxes made their way to the Allotments Library, and I said there might just be a few to follow – I was wrong! I had forgotten that bookcases were to be found on the landing and in my bedroom, so I duly delivered yet more heavy boxes, saying there might yet be a few lonely remainders to follow – wrong again! I made no more promises to Helen and her daughter on their doorstep as I delivered yet another box.

These books had been acquired from my reading, that of my ex-wife and both our deceased parents from their collections. Amongst them, I unearthed a book signed by the entire Yorkshire Cricket team in the early part of the twentieth century and the point of this narrative; a book entitled: 'The Gardener's Enquire Within'. I had put this aside as soon as I spotted its title with the intention of making it a present to one of the gardeners at the Stockwood Discovery Centre, Jan Tysoe. I had made a vow to myself that I would not be creating any more galleries until the packing was completed, but that vow was about to be tested because there was no way I was going to visit the Gardens without a camera at this time of year, so I took only the single camera with the 90mm Tamron macro attached along with the book and sought out Jan without even removing the soft case from the camera.

However, having earlier in the day had a stressful series of phone calls to Insurance companies, the opportunity and the temptation to capture some of the colour and beauty around me, conspired to break my resolve, and the case was stuffed in one pocket and the lens cap in another and shooting began immediately I had handed the book to Jan. It was rewarding that she appreciated it and  from the ensuing brief conversation, I knew it had found a new home.  As we walked by the apple blossom and I took a few pictures, I learned that this was a real success story as two earlier, poor and wet seasons had all but killed these bushes. I left Jan to tend to the greenhouse and did my best to capture the new leaves and flowers that were the gardeners' reward for all their hard work over the winter.

Before leaving I paid a quick visit to the greenhouse to say goodbye and add the last few shots, but it was in here that I found myself getting the blindspots that were a precursor to a Migraine and I held out my hand as Jan directed her hose on my outstretched palm to down a couple of Paracetamol tablets. This had blatantly been brought along by my earlier telephone frustrations of the last two days.

That was last week and I did not even look at what I had taken till I had completed the filling of many more boxes to do my best to honour the vow I had broken.