Wings of the Red Kite

If I can just squeeze this in. It’s been a difficult week, I’ve been tired out but now coming back to myself. The subject ‘Wings’ was set by Beth of the Wandering Dawgs blog, who hosts the Lens-Artists Challenge #376.

The subject took me back a number of years to a visit to the red kite feeding station at Bellymack Hill Farm in the Galloway region. There every afternoon, food is put out and dozens of red kites appear for their daily.

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A Moth’s a Moth for a’ That

Lead Image – Burnet Moth : Nikon D7500; Sigma 105mm Macro Lens; f16; 1/320sec; ISO640.

I don’t really like moths. I always remember them seeming to fly straight towards me whenever they get in the house; I didn’t like that. Moths would eat holes in my grandparents’ clothing and wardrobes smelled of naphthalene to eradicate the problem. Nasty!

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Into the Woods

Lead photo : At River Ayr Gorge, Failford:
Nikon D7500, Sigma 17-50mm F2.8; f8 1/60 sec; ISO100

Walking through the woods can be scary, and it’s more relaxing when there’s good light with sun shining through the branches. Still when I took the above image I’d already walked quite a distance and I felt quite on my own. For some reason I felt some unease and didn’t go much further.

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Looking Up, Looking Down

The world looks a bit different depending on your viewpoint. In taking photographs I’ve always been encouraged to shoot from various angles as a slight change can substantially alter and perhaps improve the resulting photograph…. especially true when using a wide angle lens. And we know sometimes we should get down on our knees to take a photo, but then, for me, it seems to be getting harder to get back up again.

So for this challenge, I want to go for the extremes of Looking Up, and Looking Down, to show the effects of what you can capture at these angles and get a different perspective on our view of the world.

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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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Butterfly Collecting

I’ve just been reading in the BBC History magazine about a wealthy lady of the 17th 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.

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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.

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