November 29th 2014 - Reflecting The Somerset Levels

 

Spent the afternoon wandering around the Shapwick part of the Somerset Levels today. The end of November weather was a bonus, not a breath of wind and in mid afternoon sunshine 12 degrees warm. Julie and I began with a coffee at Eco Bites near Shapwick, we love it here as to the birds, this 'Christmas' robin and a sociable reed bunting.

 

After this, it was onto Shapwick Heath and marvelling at the sublime reflections in a still almost mirror like water atmosphere.

 

Sunlight through Primeval ferns at the waters edge

 

This is not upside down - the water was that mirror like.

 

Stumps in water

 

Reeds, water and blue skies

 

I got Julie to lob a stone in here to add the circle ripples to an otherwise perfect reflection.

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The sun was beginning to drop so while waiting for the starlings, a few arty shots too

 

 

 

By 4pm we were in Meare Heath hide and watching the starlings flood past. Everyone else was elsewhere, we seemed to have the place to ourselves.

 

By the time this heron arrived the light was shocking but whacking up the ISO I managed a final reflection shot.

 

 

We left the hide at 4.30pm and walked back through the woodland to the car. Such an atmospheric walk and allowed us to reflect on the day.

November 11th 2014 - Armistice Day

I had the absolute privilege of working with a visually impaired photographer on Sunday, up at Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland. Rosita McKenzie was one of the most inspiring people I have met. At the age of 11 she became blind almost overnight and now has absolutely no visual stimuli, although as she said she may be able to distinguish between bright sunlight and dark night, but now not sure whether that's just because it 'feels different'.


She came to Hadrian's Wall with me to record a short programme which will air in February on Radio 4. More on that nearer the time. What I came away with was a real understanding of her disability, her work and her way of connecting with the landscape.

I'll come back to this topic soon, but as this is Armistice Day, she mentioned to me when we met she had just returned from visiting the poppies at the Tower of London. Wishing to take a photograph which represented what she felt about her visit there, rather than just an image of a poppy, she had the scene described to her by one of the stewards. The steward mentioned that she was looking at one of the workers tables, complete with abandoned tools and water, adjacent to the sea of poppies.

"That's it, that's the image I want to take"

Rosita's inspiration for that image was her imagination and connection to the scene around her. Her connection was that these modern tools were as it were a ghost presence of the tools of war left by the troops who died on the battlefield. Those tools of different use 100 years apart were at some point in time held by living breathing people. 100 years ago that rifle, bayonet or helmet was a tool of a now long dead soldier, today at the tower, the workers tools are similarly abandoned, only the memory of the living breathing human beings who held either set of tools remains. But what she grasped was the human endeavour, now surrounded by poppies via an image which she captured above. And I think this is the most poignant image I've seen in context of its reason for capture.

I wonder how many people visiting the sea of poppies, especially sighted people thought in that way. How many grumbled at the fact that 'that table is spoiling my view'.

In the short time I spent in Rosita's company, I learnt a lot about myself, about connecting with the landscape and about how someone who is visually impaired sees with much more clarity than I ever could. Rosita is a remarkable woman and I am privileged to have met her.

More of her work can be found here : http://rositamckenzie.co.uk/

A third brood of my house martins

Well yesterday after returning from a day at work and wondering what to do, I thought it is about time to unpack the new camera and have a play. I can't believe I've had this camera since last Thursday and it was still in the box until last night. I'm slacking. Actually just haven't really had the time to sit and play with the functions.

I used to be a big SLR fan before digital came along, then the prices rose and as compacts became more and more sophisticated I switched to those, not least because a lot of the time I'm out and about, so a small compact which does the job, while also slipping into a pocket is the boy for me. Film is still superior though in my book, just expensive to process now.

I used to have a wonderful Canon G9, well actually I still have it. But after nearly 7,500 images over 18 months the sensors began to fail, and finally turned over and shuffled off this mortal coil about 6 months ago. In this throw away society, repairs were more costly than buying a new camera. But I was in a quandary what to buy. A replacement, the G11 was an option but I had niggles after the G9 failed. So since the G9 failed I've been using my BlackBerry (actually not bad) and my ancient Canon Powershot A35 which I actually like but it's not ideal for macro.

Research led me to the Panasonic TZ range with Leica lens's, and after much faffing about - a good deal on a now superseded but brand new TZ7 made my mind up. Hasn't quite got the functions of the G9, however it does have one advantage - a x 12 optical zoom. The G9 could go to x24 as a digital zoom but actually over x8 it was hopeless, with only the in-built image stabilising saving the day.

So last night I unpacked the camera and went outside to photograph the house martins.

I moved into this house in December and a house martin nest was in the eves, boding well for the summer. Well the summer came and the martins returned, festooning my windowsills with, shall I call it the aftermath of feeding. I loved lying in bed hearing the little martinettes squawking and squabbling just outside, however the mound of aftermath grew. A few weeks ago after the second brood had fledged I cleaned the windowsill, only to discover immediately that 'it' was beginning to accumulate again. I give up. But excitingly this is now the third brood of my house martins.

But back to the photography. After taking the first photograph above, I wondered what the zoom was like just standing there and hand held. These shots were taken at exactly the same spot as the one above, just zooming in.

This one above is at x 6

This one above is at x 12

I have to say considering this wasn't the best light possible and I'm new to the camera's sensors, this hand held x12 shot of the nest is pretty good. I like my camera already......!

But then thought I wonder how fast the shutter speed is. Can I photograph the martins going into and out of the nest. The G9 had a super fast shutter speed allowing shots like this to be made quite easily. This Panasonic has just a fractionally slower shutter speed. So after half an hour and the light starting to fade, the image above of the parent arriving at the nest and the one below (that white tail bottom of frame) of it leaving aren't the best I took, but were the best of the bunch.

More practice needed - of course it could be operator error!

About an hour later a stunning sunset began over Bristol Channel and beyond to Wales (I'm only 10 miles away as the crow flies) and using the special 'sunset' function I have to say I'm impressed with the end result as it maintained the colours well.

So far so good then. I'm off to Dartmoor tomorrow for work, so will have an opportunity to try out the macro function on some wasps. If any images make the grade, I'll post them on the blog.