Bank Holiday Monday – Brogborough Lake Bright, and Busy

           I decided that I’d like a relaxing day just seeing what I could capture around the lake at Brogborough. I knew that without even the slightest zephyr, there would certainly not be any windsurfing activity on this bright and ultimately hot Bank Holiday Monday. I reckoned there might well be those who would take to the water on Paddle Boards, and on this I was correct; I was surprised how many would be taking to the water, and certainly I did meet a couple of people whom I would normally associate with windsurfing, but in the main the visitors today were young families.

          I decided that I would take a panorama, but as My bracket which would have allowed me to use a tripod, was carefully stowed back at the house, so I would have to take the shots hand-held as to get any height to the final image the camera has be in a vertical format. So this was my first set of images, and only when I was at the computer would I know how successful the composite image might be – it was certainly not perfect, but definitely it was usable. It was was assembled from twenty single images in RAW format in Lightroom. Later I might well put it into Zoomify, so it can be seen greater detail, but for now that is not the case.

          I had used the 5D MkIII with the 24-70mm lens for those shots, but swapped to the 100mm Macro thereafter to photograph anything I felt was interesting; in the main I was looking for insects, and found an unusual bee-like one that I had only rarely spotted before it tapers from an oval body to what would appear to be a fixed proboscis, and unlike normal bees it is able to hover, and it seemed to favour a clump of white flowers, but it was often very nippy, so I would lose it frequently.

          There were a few hoverflies, flies, ladybirds, and one such looked as if it were heading for a feast of Aphids, but then headed off in another direction, but in the background a hoverfly was considering an ambush! There were a couple of swans, so not a vast array of exciting images, but a challenge to capture, with a lot of watching and waiting! Altogether a very relaxing way to spend time with a camera in the great outdoors.

Autumn Sun in Priory Park Bedford

Last time I attempted to capture the colours of Autumn, I was thwarted by the ever-shy English Sun – however when an opportunity arose again, I made my way to Priory park in Bedford; the only adversary on this occasion was my intransigent SatNav, which would bow out when I needed it most which involved me in more than one loop back to take the correct direction at a junction. Even when nearing the Car Park, it was insisting it would appear on my right, but fortunately I spotted it myself on my left, albeit too late resulting in a U-turn at a nearby junction.

I was greeted by a very milky sun, but as forecast, it slowly cleared and was pleasantly warm with not a breath of breeze to ripple the water on the lakes. After a brief conversation wit a couple of ladies by the map, I set off for a walk around the lake with just the 5D MKIII and the 35mm f/1.4 lens. I headed for the water's edge before crossing the green sward to a stand of multicoloured trees in the near distance. After a few brief glimpses beyond the frontage of cover, I headed back to the path that ran around the lake's edge, taking every opportunity that was offered for further trips down pathways into the woods to my left, which resulted in other small pools under heavy tree cover, and small bridges over streams or gullies.

I continued these forays throughout my trip around the lake before returning to my start and changing cameras and lenses at the car after taking the opportunity to eat a Scotch egg and a packet of crisps. I would have liked to have used my monopod with my long lens, but sadly, the 3/8th to 1/4 screw adaptor was stuck firmly and I had no tools to extricate it to attach it to the lens foot. I also swapped the 35mm lens for the Tamron 90mm Macro and took the anti-clockwise trip and returned the way from which I had just emerged with the 5D MkIII and now the 150-600mm around my neck. This time only retracing a third of that side of the lake before making a different route back to the car.

I had covered quite a lot of ground and had found the Canoe Slalom Course, but without its teams of canoeists and met numerous dog walkers and mothers and grandmothers of very young children with a mere handful of fathers, and countless joggers and strollers with earphones firmly excluding the sounds of the wildlife from their hearing. There were also the occasional young businessmen discussing their day's business meetings as they made their way around the lake as well as a few small family groups at the water's edge feeding the ducks and gulls, or using plastic ball throwers to keep their dogs exercised. It was only towards the end of my trip did I spot any birds that my camera could consider capturing.

It was a very relaxed interlude with several tunnels of trees to capture bathed in warm autumnal hues and casting long shadows through the branches of trees still fairly-well covered in their foliage, but as I walked I witnessed numerous flutterings of leaves falling to form the golden carpet that covered the paths I was following, every so often I would turn around and take shots from the opposing direction when I spotted the new view from the other side.

I wondered just how long before the wind and rains of the oncoming winter would be upon us.