Riverside Garden Life

            Light, Life, Textures and Colour are the features that entice me to use a camera to record; and on this particular warm afternoon a short distance from the River Great Ouse becomes the record of what I found and as I filled a quiet afternoon. The insects at one stage completely covered the flowers as they sought out the bounteous gifts on offer, and played out their reproductive cycle amongst the colours and scents of their environment. Light captured the silky threads that bridged the seed heads as if to form a high wire for insects to perform gymnastic feats for the audience of roses beyond. The supporting plant pillars seemingly offered by outstretched fingers from seed heads. It almost seemed as if the plants were offering their generous support to the web-spinning insects by holding index fingers as pylons — is this fanciful to consider there are links formed over aeons between animals and plants?

             Certainly, there are the very obvious examples of pollination aided by the the enticing provision of nectar. Nearby a small butterfly was undoubtedly providing a service for flowering plants, and ultimately ourselves in the provision of nutritious honey from those natural activities of bees and flowers. I could also see amongst some tall stems the structures at a greater scale; the heads of tropical palm trees.

            A repeating theme of the pictures I take is often the capture of textures and, some leaves caught my eye by the sunlight finding and highlighting the surface of a single lush, heart-shaped leaf amongst the flowing curves of grassy leaves. In the shade of overhanging leaves, a finger of still water by the river’s edge was caught in a pool of sunlight with lace-like golden threads of roots, backed by the reflection of blue sky and silhouette of the shading tree. I did not have a polarising filter to hand which might have better captured what lay beneath the reflecting surface water.

            All the pictures in this small gallery were taken several days back, but I have not had the opportunity to process them, due to a mix of pleasurable time spent with my elder daughter, and frustrating, unproductive time that hopefully is now behind me.

A Marston Moretaine Walk

Yesterday I needed exercise, and the Marston Vale Forest seemed a good place to walk in sunshine and fresh air, away from contact with other humans. I took only my LUMIX fz20001 and walked along the main road to the gated entrance on the opposite side to the row of houses — encountering no one! Once through the gate, I had walked to the first viewing platform of the wetland area before I met a soul, and these were a couple in quiet conversation, who probably did not even register my presence. I climbed the steps to take in the view from this open air hide — all that was to be seen were some rooks and a lone Greylag.
The flowers in the opening and closing galleries were taken in the walk to and from the Forest Centre. The camera that recorded every image in this group was the LUMIX FZ 10002; which now accompanies me when I am not toting my heavy Benbo with one of my Canon bodies and the Sigma 60-600mm Sports lens. The irony is that the LUMIX should be easier to use, but because it has so many different functions, I find it harder to find the limited facilities I require, at speed! This is why I try to take this camera out as often as possible, so I can feel as confident as using my Canon gear. The drawback is that due to an aging brain, when I then next take out one of my Canons is that I struggle to remember how to do something that used to be second nature!
Initially the route I took kept close to the outer boundary of the reserve, and by pure luck I found myself taking a picture on the far side of a brick structure I had photographed only a few days back; it still has me puzzled as to its original purpose. I suspect it is a remnant from an erstwhile railway line, but viewing using Google Earth did not expose any further answer.
Today’s photo trip does show that Spring is definitely coming on, spurred by the several days of welcome warm sunshine. The wind has also moderated over the last couple of days. At various points along my circular trip, work upon the Covanta Incinerator can be seen with its tall cranes highly visible in red against the blue sky. Of more personal interest, I spotted my first butterfly of this year, the Peacock. The variety of colours and textures is very much in evidence at this time of year, hence why I enjoyed that afternoon trip; young leaves often exhibit far greater texture in their early stages on growth than their later full size. The variety of textures I found in dead wood, dried, crazed soil and discarded bark, and the curves of the paths are all featured in the gallery of images from this walk with a camera. Coming away from the Park, effectively bookended the gallery with what caught my eye once back on the road back to my house in the front gardens I passed.

Stewartby Lake Walk

In the past I have often tried to capture the patchwork fields of Oilseed Rape as an early sign of the end of Winter and the burgeoning flourish of colour to the fields and this has been a year when I have not taken any notice of  these cloths of gold, so when a chance came to go out and see whether there were some such fields, I found myself thwarted. There are few hills to give some height to view from, and in this part of Bedfordshire, the crop seems rare, but it had been my intention on this journey with my camera.

I did spot a singular large field, but it was not particularly accessible, and it was in very flat land, so at most would provide a slit of yellow against green and brown, with no undulations and the sky was boringly clear of clouds against the sky. Plan B beckoned. I parked the car by an entrance to the circular path around Stewartby Lake, where I thought there might be some activity on the water from those celebrating the Easter break, but the lake was a serene calm, so of no interest to the sailors of dinghies, so after a quick reconnaissance, I selected my 24-70mm lens and took a walk along the path, widdershins to essentially capture the Spring blossom and the young leaves which lined the way.

Occasionally, there were a few small white butterflies with a flash of orange, an abundance of midges that would find my exhaled breath an attraction, the brief sighting of small birds just darting across my field of view and a small hovering furry insect that defied my ability to record its presence, all around the songs of birds was ever present, but they were largely out of sight. I wandered slowly along keen to capture the small indications of red against the whites of Spring blooms, the textures of sunlight on the wrinkled young leaves and sprigs of blossom against the pale blue sky. The discarded bricks at the water’s edge that defines the foreshore of this vast wound where clay had been extracted for the brickworks whose signature four tall chimneys still stand in the derelict expanse that remains from that time.

It did provide me a small glimpse of a landscape –  in a  scene that caught my eye; a lone swan in the mirror-like calm of still water with a distant stand of tall trees, sadly with an arc of discarded cans in the shallow water, but a picture nonetheless. During the walk I was passed by a couple of cyclists and runners doing laps of the lake and two of those, exercising their dogs alongside for company. Altogether a not too disappointing gallery of images from the short trip.

Snow out at Tea Green and Lilley

On the Friday, I had planned some Photoshop training for someone in Windsor, and was nervous over getting there on time so stayed in Burnham the night before, and was fortunate that the trip over was uneventful. However, overnight in Luton there had been a heavy snowfall yet again, so on my return, I realised how fortunate I had been. On the Saturday, out came the sun, so I invited my next door neighbour, Brenda to join me for a trip to Tea Green and Lilley.

The low sun cast long shadows which brought out the texture in the snow and accentuated the skipping steps of birds across the surface. So I now have a number of background textures to add to my collection. I also liked the effect of snow on some white palisades, some frozen splashes near an island in a small frozen pond, and lastly the sweeping ribbon of tarmac in a wintry landscape.