Light And Shadow Over The Garden Fence

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Late summer and corn cockle seed heads against a Wenlock Edge sunset.

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Townsend Meadow behind the house; the fence surrounding the attenuation pond that protects the town from flash floods. And also our local carrion crow couple being nicely scenic.

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The upstairs garden seat in winter; the ash log sun dial, and the last of the crab apples.

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Autumn dawn, the guerrilla garden in shadow: Michaelmas daisies and helianthus. Townsend Meadow after the barley harvest, but still golden in the early morning sunshine.

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An early summer monochrome foxgloves and purple toadflax in the guerrilla garden.

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And an almost-monochrome. Shadow play on a dust sheet hug out to dry on the washing line.

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Lens-Artists: Light & Shadow  Patti has set the theme this week. Please pay her a visit. She has some stunning photos to show us.

Framed In All Seasons On Windmill Hill

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A Don’t Look Now moment? Who is that small, retreating turquoise person?

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This week’s Lens-Artists’ challenge is from Tina. She asks us to think about ‘the rule of thirds’ in our photo compositions. Please go and see her very striking photo gallery (link at the end). As for me, I thought I’d feature some of my too many Windmill Hill photos. It’s the place where I go to play with my camera.

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June is orchid time, mostly pyramidal (above) and spotted, and  a small population of tiny bee orchids which are very hard to find (below)

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The grassland on the Windmill Hill is a rare survival – a traditional limestone meadow: clover red and white, bedstraw, orchids, agrimony, ragwort to name a few of its summer floral inhabitants.

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A profusion of Lady’s Bedstraw. Its subtle fragrance is delicious.

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After the flowers, a host of grass species

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A seat in winter

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Girls just wanting to miss netball practice

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Little ponies once used to graze the hill in autumn

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Early spring Cuckoo Pint

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Blizzard!

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Lens-Artists: rule of thirds

Chasing The Light Over Townsend Meadow

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Those who come here often know that our Shropshire cottage overlooks a field that once marked Much Wenlock’s northerly boundary. It’s all in the name of course – Townsend Meadow. In times past it was pasture for dairy cows. The farm, long gone, was in the corner of the field, and the dairy, where the milk was collected, was a few doors down from our house on Sheinton Street. But in the years since we’ve lived here the field has been used solely for growing arable crops; wheat mostly, but now-and-then oil seed rape, oats, field beans and barley.

Our further view, beyond the field, is of the woods along the summit of Wenlock Edge. You can just make them out in the middle distance of the first photo. This vista and this field and the sky above, are the places where I endlessly discover events and effects. In this sense you could call it a source of rich sustenance; the everyday world that is never commonplace.

When it comes to photography, I belong to the ranks of happy snappers. I have zero technical skills, though somewhat perversely I’m particularly drawn to taking photos in challenging light conditions – to see what will happen, I suppose. The first photo is a good example. It was taken by opening the rooflight window in my office to the horizontal position (which also involved standing on the spare bed) resting my Lumix point-and-shoot camera on the back of said window – that is, on the outside frame nearest me – engaging some zoom, and hoping things are as focused as can be. And there we are.  It is a strange photo. A bit quantum physics-ish. Lost realms and parallel universe kind of stuff.

Here are some rather more obvious low-light Townsend Meadow moments.

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Lens-Artists: Follow Your Bliss Lindy has set the challenge this week.

Catching the Light ~ Menai Strait In Winter

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This week Amy at Lens-Artists has set us a fine task – the pursuit of natural light. It’s one of the aspects of photography that fascinates me most; especially when it’s in short supply. Anyway, I instantly thought of the strange light effects that happen across the Menai Strait between the North Wales coast and the island of Anglesey, caught here during various December sojourns on the island. All the views are looking towards the Welsh mainland and Snowdonia.

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Lens-Artists: Natural Light

Pose Perfect

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This week Lisa at Our Eyes Open  asks to see photos of birds we love. To be honest pheasants are  not a favourite, though their plumage is certainly magnificent. What I love about this pheasant is that he stopped to pose by the Sweet William. It shows him off so very nicely, don’t you think. After that I wasn’t too keen on him, and reverted to grumpy gardener mode. The photo was taken near my allotment plot and I didn’t need him nibbling and pecking among my veggies.

Bird Weekly

The Changing Seasons: December 2020

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Here are some of the many photos taken in the last few days in my various spheres of activity. First: snow scenes in the Linden Field.

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And in and out the garden, over the garden fence:

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And up at the allotment and surrounding vistas:

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And finally my Happy New Year photo: all the very best to everyone in 2021.

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The Changing Seasons: December 2020

 

More About Outline Than Content

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This week Jude at Travel Words truly set us a photo challenge:

“find an object where its outline is more dominant than its three dimensional qualities, you need to approach your photograph with an eye for shape rather than form.”

She also provided a very striking photo for guidance. I then returned to the words, thought I understood them, but as I looked through my own photos began to wonder if I actually did. So after a backtrack to Travel Words to see how others had responded, these are the photos I came up with. The header tulips are anyway worth including simply for their ‘look-at-me’ factor. Also if you’ve forgotten to plant your tulip bulbs (in the UK anyway), there’s still time to do it in December.

The next photos are all from Kalamata: remembrance of sojourns past and other Greek reflections across the Gulf of Messenia.

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2020 Photo Challenge