Autumn Colours

Hello again, I hope you enjoyed my hedgehog post, there will be a fox post coming soon along similar lines, but for now some beautiful autumn colours. I have been so busy with one thing and another that I have not been able to get out and about to capture the beautiful colours this autumn, but finally got half and hour early on Sunday morning. We had a pretty hard frost here in Somerset Saturday night and wonderful bright clear morning, well at least it started that way, which would mean only one thing getting out with my camera and new toy. I purchased a 6-point starburst filter sometime ago for using in a new project next year but hadn't actually even taken it out of the box since it arrived, so armed with camera and filter I headed out......into my parents garden! I took lots of different images, the artistic flare definitely making a welcomed returned to my photography and here are the results, so sit back and enjoy, everything has been done in camera, apart from a a slight bit of cropping on one image there has been no post-processing, who needs Photoshop!!! As always comments and thoughts are very welcomed and if you wish to purchase any of these images as prints head over to my website. 

And because I just love a good black and white, here are a couple of the sunrise in black and white, again all in camera!

Just thought I would share this beautiful morning with everyone and hopefully brighten your day. That's it for now, don't forget to register for my webinar as part of the Manfrotto School of Xcellance this Thursday (15th November) 4-5pm UK time where I will take you through some of my more unique images and how I've captured them, just follow this link: 

Webinar

Until next time, when I will have a post dedicated to foxes...........

Competition Success

Hello, 

It seems that Autumn is well on it's way now here in the UK and rumour has it the autumn colours are going to be spectacular this year due to the weather we've been having, that is if the leaves aren't blown from the trees before they start turning! Things have been hectic the last month or so, but I'm slowly catching up. I have some fantastic news however with regards a competition I entered earlier in the year run by The Zoological Society of London. Firstly here is a little more about the competition: 

The ZSL Animal Photography Prize aimed for more than just pretty pictures, they were looking for images that would form part of the exhibition and ongoing collection of work which would challenge the viewers' perception of and relationship with the natural world and its inhabitants. 

The competition attracted entrants from around the world and the calibre of the work entered has been truly remarkable. The winning and highly commended images in each category of the junior and adult divisions will now form the basis of an outdoor exhibition to be displayed in the heart of ZSL London Zoo.

Now for the news:

I entered several images and two of them were short-listed, a few weeks later I received news that one of the images (The Weevil and the Fern) won its category and the second image (Mating Bubbles) had been highly commended and that both of these would now be part of the exhibition in the grounds of London Zoo until the end of the year. Both images are of insects and both taken in Somerset, they are available as prints via my website or as keyrings and magnets from craft markets (details later in this post). So here they are, the images and photos of me standing next to the images at London Zoo. 

The Weevil and the Fern - Winner in Size Matters category  Green nettle weevil taken at Westhay Moor Nature reserve on the Somerset Levels. 

Mating Bubbles - Highly Commended in Birds and the Bees category. Mating yellow dung files silhouetted against the sky in Shepton Mallet

In other news, I am now very much gearing up for Christmas and starting to prepare winter and Christmas themed products to sell at the craft markets, new dates and venues are been added all the time so keep checking the list on my website and why not pop along and pick up some wonderfully unique presents, cards or stocking fillers! 

Craft Markets

Right back to work on some very exciting projects which I will bring you more news about in the coming months but just to wet your appetite one involves tigers and India and the other insects!

Take care and keep safe

Last Few Days

Well, things have been busy over the last few days. i have been out on the Somerset levels again looking for just about anything! I saw my first ever wild grass snake and it swam across a small pool of water, the spiders were out in force and were the ants and ticks, but thankfully all the ticks remained on the vegetation and not on me! I also saw my first damselfly of the year, what a character it was too, and features in the first photo for this post almost looks like it's waving!

I finally managed to capture on film the mating dance of the wolf spider, it is a mesmerizing display, make sure you watch both spiders carefully, the male is on the left the femal on the right.

Spider Mating Dance

Some news from the garden to finish off with, there have been some visitors to the garden over the last couple of days in the form of four mallard ducks, one female and three males. They definately seem to have made themselves comfy, resting in the grass, washing and feeding in the pond. Just yesterday I found an egg on the lawn, thankfully the female came back for it and now just keeping fingers crossed that they will have a family. I will keep you posted, but for now the second photo for today is of one of the males having a wash.