The Thaw has started....

Looking towards whetstone - Narborough Bog,

As I write this it looks like the weather might just have started to change. We have had some snow today but it has not really settled and the roads are starting to clear - perhaps the thaw has started. I hope so. However, the weather is unpredictable so I expect to wake up tomorrow and find a metre of snow. I hope this isn't the case as I am getting stur crazy being stuck in the house due to the weather. I want to get out without wondering whether the roads will be impassable. One further thought - once this snow melts we will have flooding. Oh deep joy.

Playing Catch Up...

Seahouses

One of the advantages of not feeling up to much is that it does give you time to catch up with work you have been putting off and off. Well I have been wading through my back catalogue to see what I might have missed/not got round to working on. The three photographs are the product of this work.

Seahouses

Whitethroat - Narborough

More time in the Bog...

Just took my new macro lens for a test drive. I have to say first impressions are very positive. The colour and contrasts are a considerable improvement on the previous lens. This being said I found the old lens to be really good under most circumstances - however, it didn't seem very responsive to auto focus of the 1D. Anyway, I took the new lens and 1D to the bog and I found the experience to be most encouraging.

Creepy things in the bog...

Banded Demoiselle

It is amazing this nature thing. Just amazing. It must be 4 weeks since I was last at the Narborough Bog and what a change. The last time I was there the bog was still underwhelming, things had started to grow but not by that much. Now well it's a jungle out there. I was walking through the reeds this morning and had a sudden cold shiver going down my back. Suddenly I felt I was in Jurassic Park and the reeds were filled with Velociraptor - they are that tall. I am over 6 feet tall and they tower over me - quite spooky.

Large White Butterfly

One of things that comes with this prodigious growth are all the creepy crawlies. These were what I was interested in - well actually the dragonflies, damselflies and butterflies. Again, this didn't disappoint. Whilst the larger dragonflies buzz by too quickly to capture (at the moment) the damselflies and butterflies are another matter. Once you follow the path deep into the reed bed then you are surrounded by hundreds of the creatures. Providing you are fairly still then you can approach them really quite close. Now I am new to this branch of photography so everything is snapped - the 1D really comes into its own. I have been following the advice of Colin Smith FRPS (in the latest issue of IRIS) and shot everything at a high ISO so that I get everything as frozen as possible. On the whole this is working but I suspect there is far more to things than that. Only time will tell.

Tomorrow I'm off to Wicken fen so hopefully some of the lessons I have learnt locally can be applied to one of the best places to see dragonflies. Lets see what the results will be.

One final thing - identification. What a complicated thing this is turning out to be. As I write this I am surrounded by all sorts of reference books used to ID the creatures. Again this should get easier as time goes on - well lets hope so.

Large Skipper

Playing Catch Up

I suppose we all get those sort of days.  Days when you don't really feel like doing anything other than sitting on you big bum and watching TV.  Well todays has been one of those days.  It has been a real struggle to get anything done.   I was planning on going out and making a few photographs but unfortunately I just couldn't summon the energy to this.  I'm sorry today was just a flop.

The one thing that I was able to do was try and catch up with the back log of photographs I have taken and try to sort through them and process a few.  Believe me this was also hard but I persevered and managed to produce these 4 photographs.   I have a busy few days ahead so I doubt I will be able to get out and make any photographs so I might have to resort to further catching up - perhaps this is not a bad thing after all given the back log I have got!

Bog Blog

I know this is becoming a bit like the Bog Blog at the moment but I have found such inspiration in the Bog that I can't help myself.   I love the light and colour you get in these moist and dank places.  Don't worry I'll get over it but there may well be some further Bog Blogs before the infliction passes.

Spending more time in the bog

Another day, another day.  Yes it has been a damp and dismal Easter Sunday.  Great.  I spent a couple of hours in the local bog,  taking more photographs.  I have finally cracked the flash with the G9, I found out that the flash works a lot better with the setting on Tv.  Now I know I should have known this but I didn't - always learning something, again if I had read the instructions this would have helped.   Never do!

I had the place to myself and it was great.   This large expanse of woodland and flood meadow is a photography heaven, that is if you enjoy making photographs of damp and decay.  Needless to say I do and the weather was just perfect.  It gave the leaves a wonderful glean, their verdant colours look really great in the flat light.   Back in the studio for can really enhance the colours and and make some fantastic moody photographs.

Messing about in a bog

Where does creativity come from?  I am sure that there have been CAT scan studies of the brian that indicate the part of the brain that lights up when you are being creative but that doesn't explain anything.  Is creativity an expression of the soul?   Is it the manifestation of the a greater spirit than the human race?  Or is it just a random chance - something that has evolved along with our ability to walk on two legs?   I am sure that there are more enlightened people than myself who may be able to provide some answers to these questions but it will never be the full answer.

So why am I asking these questions?  What am I seeking the answers for?   Well it struck me that I have been going through a streak of creativity at the moment.  It is almost like a strange clarity.  I see potential photographs in everything I do.  Someone said to me the other day when they were looking at my recent output that they would never have seen the things I had to make photographs out of them.  This is not to say that what I have produced is good, bad or worst of all indifferent it just means I have felt an urge, an itch to take and make photographs.  This is at a rate of over 30 a day.  

Today has been no exception.  I spent 2 hours this morning wondering around a wonderful local nature reserve.  It is tucked away next to the M1 and cut into by a busy railway yet even these do not prevent the place from being a magical place.  It is an ancient bog, according to the notice board at the entrance this has been forming since the last ice age.   The trees that make up the wood lands at the heart of the bog have that strange brilliant green lichen growing all over their exposed roots and branches.  At times it was almost like a scene from Lord of the Rings.  Yet all the time you could hear the roaring traffic and the passing trains.   As I walked through the bog I just came across photographic opportunities - it was intoxicating.  Now not all of these worked but they still inspired me to create wonderful photographs.  But why?   Why was I so inspired?  Why was I so creative?   I suspect the answer is blowing in the wind.