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Living on the Edge

(from Oct 2016)
Down on the rocks near Troon harbour, I looked for seabirds – anything at all. I could see eider ducks, oystercatchers, cormorants and gulls – plenty. Then looking back into the sunlight, I just spotted a little movement on the flat rocks. A family of four little Ringed Plovers were ‘coorying doon’ out of the wind behind a wee ridge. The strong sun behind them wasn’t going to give me a good shot, so I moved in a great half circle round to get the light directly on to them.

Always Favourites

Lens-Artists Challenge #268 – Tell Me Why

This week I’m trying to pick out some of my all-time favourites in response to Tina’s Lens-Artists Challenge. And I should tell you why the are favourites.

I think in all of them I’ve felt I’ve managed to create something I was really pleased with. A number of them were surprises where a little drop of magic seemed to be caught. Like the bee on the globe flowers above, which I’d taken in quite low light and didn’t expect to draw anything out of the setting. And now it’s even the source material for the jazziBee logo.

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Sea Calming

Lens-Artist Challenge #267 – Recharge

Thanks to Egidio for setting this week’s photo challenge. Egidio takes us out into the wild places of the US with his marvellous images illustrating the environments that recharge his batteries.

For myself nothing helps me reset more consistently than a trip down to the sea – just down to the Firth of Clyde. This involves a 20-30 minute drive depending on my chosen spot.

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Time through the Lens

For the Lens-Artist Challenge this week, Donna of Wind Kisses asks us to “think about what time looks like through the eye of YOUR lens.”

That’s quite a different challenge and I find it hard to be clear in my own mind about it. Every photograph captures a moment in time. So I’m thinking that every photograph is taken at that particular point in spacetime. The right place at the right time and taken for the right length of time.

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Butterfly Collecting

I’ve just been reading in the BBC History magazine about a wealthy lady of the 17^th century, whose abusive and estranged husband successfully challenged her will following her decease. He claimed that she was not of sound mind when she left all her property to her cousin. Among the evidence he cited of her madness was that she was obsessed with the collection of butterflies and moths.

Monochrome Madness – The Old Mill

I thought I’d captured too much in this image and that focussing in on parts of the view might have been better. However, a bit of work to even out the exposure seemed to help. I was pleased with the way the sky came out and I like it enough to get it printed up. And it worked out as a mono which is good because it was pretty drab in colour.

Offered in response to Leanne’s Monochrome Madness challenge – which you can link to HERE. This also gives you info on how to join in to the challenge.

Primary Colours

RED is the Colour of…

Tomatoes and Strawberries, Raspberries and Red Peppers. The Red Flag and Stop signs. The Red Cross and the Red Arrows. Seeing red and anger and danger and Emergency Stop Buttons. The Red Sea and the Red River Valley. Red Admirals, Simply Red and Ninety-nine Red Balloons

Much more here

How Wild is This?

I’m responding to the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge and this week Dianne is saying ‘Let’s Get Wild!’ She’s talking about ‘Mother Nature untouched and untrammelled, allowed to get on with her work without human help or hindrance.’ Well there’s not much left of that in the UK with so many of our wild areas busy with tourists and all the facilities introduced to accommodate them. Even our wildest areas are ‘managed’. Our own Scottish hills have largely been cleared of the natural forest centuries ago and many other areas were taken over for forestry in the last century. Only now are we making moves to re-establish some of the original landscape.

Green and Blue

Nature’s colours

What with the blue of sky and green of leaves, blue and green are common acquaintances in nature. The view of my regular lockdown walk down the right hand side of the river (above) was taken on evening last week. But I looking through my archives and find some other examples of natural blues and greens.

Like this Common Blue butterfly. It’s not long emerged from its chrysalis and is sitting here upside down on a reed stem taking in the heat of the morning sun.

A small butterfly but the male is so blue and when you see them fluttering by you feel there’s something magical happening.

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Favourite Images from 2020

A New Year! A fresh start! – Well, I feel it’ll take a bit longer but we can all hope for an improvement in our circumstances as 2021 progresses. I wish you all peace, prosperity and good health for the coming year. While the last year has been hard, I’m very clear that others have had a truly dreadful time and I feel I’ve been very lucky.