Garden Sculpture.

I took this photograph at the Springfields Show gardens in Spalding, it's a wonderful sculpture.

My question today is does anyone know the sculptor. I would love to show them some credit on here for such wonderful work.

If you know, let me know via the comments section, thanks.

Black & White or Colour?

Hi, my question today is Black and white, or colour?

I think both images have their merits, but which do people prefer?

Please let me know via the comments section, thanks.

Pink Marigolds

Hi all, thought I'd return again to my blog and see if I can post some more.

These flowers were taken at Springfields in Spalding Lincolnshire.

I just loved the vibrancy of their colors,

I hope you do too.

Please feel free to leave your comments on these below.

Also if there is a particular type of photography or subject matter you want me to try, let me know via the comments.

Header Challenge 19th January 2011 - Missing

 

Hi all and welcome to another Header challenge Wednesday.

Today’s choice has been chosen by Lanny and is `Missing’.

Now my first thought was just to put up a blank header and say the picture is `missing’ but I thought you might think that was a bit of a cop out.

So I’ve put my thinking cap on and come up with a few ideas and hopefully a good header.

I could use the bird feeder shot in which I missed the bird…

Or the eggs that had been `missing` all week…

we had begun to think our chickens had slowed down their egg production when we found these behind a fence panel in the garden (28 in total).

Or how about the synchro pair of the red arrows, when `missing` each other on their high speed cross-over's is vitally important.

I’ve decided to stay with the Red Arrows for this weeks header, but a shot of one of their displays last year when they were `missing` one of their team due to illness. They still managed to put on a great show though. Can you spot where the missing arrow should be in the formation?

Oh well one thing more I am missing tonight is another 800 words for my University essay that is due in tomorrow, so I will leave you all for the moment. Hopefully I won’t be `missing` for too long.

Have a wonder over to the other headbangers blogs in the mean time and check what they are `missing` this week in their headers.

Eggs Surprise!

We keep a few chickens in our back garden here in Lincolnshire as many of you know. Having fresh eggs daily from your own chickens is really nice and they always seem to taste better when they are your own chickens.

Well we got a bit of a surprise this lunchtime when we collected in our chickens egg from their nest boxes. They were all cracked! Nothing really unusable about that as eggs get cracked all the time. The surprise was why they had cracked.

They had all frozen solid within their shells…

So instead of hard boiled eggs we had hard frozen eggs!

It was so unusual as in all the years we have had chickens we have not seen it before. So I just had to get the camera out and take some pictures.

Poor chickens, time for extra straw and a nice warm mash!

Headbanger Challenge 3rd November 2010 – Fall has Arrived.

 

This weeks headbangers challenge has been set by Tom- fishing Guy and is `Fall has Arrived`. Now over here we don’t call it the fall but stick to Autumn. So I hope you don’t mind Tom but I’ll sub head this weeks header with ‘Autumnal’.

Now autumn colours I love, all the golden yellows vibrant gold's and bronzes of the leaves. The bright red of the berries in the hedgerows, they all make for an outstanding photo opportunity.

So to try and get that great shot I headed over to a little lake in my neighbouring village to take some photos for the header challenge.

 

Now the lake isn’t very big but there is still an abundance of trees surrounding it.

Unfortunately as you can see from this photo I arrived a little late for some of them as they had already lost a lot of their leaves.

So it called for a bit more creativity.

Holding the camera just above the ground gave me this more exciting photo.

I used the berries and tree trunk in this shot to frame the fishing jetty and Lily pads.

It must be nice to live in this bungalow and have the beauty of the lake at the bottom of your garden.

I hope you like the little Autumn jaunt down to the lake. Do you think the different camera angles have worked? Let me know what you think in the comments section.

If this is your first visit why not stay a while have a look around then pop over to see the other entrants in this weeks header challenge. Just follow the links at the top of my right hand column.

Technorati Tags: Headbanger,Challenge,November,Fall,Autumn,header,Autumnal,gold,photo,lake,village,trees,tree,garden,photos,berries,camera

Interesting close-ups

I was out in the garden taking some close-ups of some of the bugs on the flowers such as this one.

As normal though it wasn’t long before my camera started to wander onto other subjects such as this unopened rose bud.

As I was leaning in to take a photo of the seeds inside our bird feeder, who should pop his nose in front of the camera, but our Irish setter Corky. Hence this strange photograph.

I did manage to get him moved out of the way, after a quick bit of affection of course, and managed to get a shot of the seeds.

As you can see you can go out with all the good intention of capturing a certain type of photo and end up with some shots completely different but hopefully still worth the effort.

 

Technorati Tags: macro,photography,camera,garden

First lily in bloom

Lily in bloom.

This is the first time this plant has flowered this year.

The subtle but powerful shades of colour within the flower make it a beautiful addition to our garden.

The evening light was playing across its surface of its petals making it stand out boldly in our garden. It cried out for these photos to be taken. I hope you like them. I have tried to explore the various angles and viewpoints of the flower. In doing so I hope to have come close to doing this beautiful flower justice.

As readers of my blog may be aware I am hopeless at the names of these plants. I know its a type of lily just not what variety. 

Maybe a kind reader can tell me what the variety is. The above photo is of a neighbouring plant before it has bloomed.

It really is quite a stunning flower.

Band Annual Barbecue

The church that we go to 'The Salvation Army' in Boston, Lincolnshire, lays on an annual barbecue for the members and families of the band.

The Barbecue was held in the garden of our assistant bandmaster.

Jonathan our host dishing up the food.

It's a great chance to socialize, chat and enjoy good food and company.

The children were able to play around the garden.

The children also enjoyed playing on the swings and climbing frame in the garden.

It wasn't just the young children playing, some of the older 'children' decided they wanted a go too. You know who you are...

Excuse me guys I said it was a great chance to be happy and socialize... oh well obviously too deep in thought.

At least some were happy.

The weather was perfect for the barbecue, as you can see here with the suns rays fanning out over the roof of the house. It was great to be able to relax in the evening sunshine, surrounded by friends and family.

The children had a great time playing around the garden.

Whilst the young at heart relaxed in the evening sunshine.

 

  The evening was a great success, thank you Jonathan and Claire for opening up your house and garden to us all again, we had a great time.

Daisy and Rose in the garden!

I popped out in to our garden this afternoon to see Daisy and Rose enjoying the sunshine, well what was left of it, its gone a bit overcast today.

The way the Daisies have clumped in this photograph reminds me of the expensive floral decorations you see in churches for weddings (ok, maybe not of daisies though).

The perfectly formed petals of this giant Daisy, (sorry don't know official name) are a wonder to behold. Isn't nature great!

 Daisy's friend Rose was also coming out to play as well so I thought I'd better take a photo of her too, mustn't have them getting jealous. 

The roses subtle colours against the green of the foliage was beautiful to behold.

Roses in Bloom.

Our roses are coming out into full bloom in our back garden at the moment.

The rose plant is starting to creep up our eucalyptus tree and is really looking really good this year.

The roses as you can see have a large mottled petal (sorry I don't know the species of rose any help on that please tell me via the comments section).

I will leave you today with the view from the bottom of our garden with fluffy white clouds setting off the setting.  Feel free to use the comments section to let me know what you think.

Thanks for visiting feel free to come back soon.

Blue doesn't have to mean sad!

Why is that the best flowers are in someone else's garden, well in my case they usually are.

When I was visiting my brother-in-law and his family near Lincoln, England, I couldn't help but stop and take a few pictures in his garden.

The subtle purple colour of these flowers, with the sun shining through the petals really showed the wonder of nature.

The blue of these Delphiniums (I think that's what they are) were so vibrant I had to take a few shots.

While I was leaning in to get a good shot, I noticed a little visitor also enjoying the flowers.

It was one of our friendly neighbourhood bees. He flitted from flower to flower only stopping for an instant before going on to the next bloom.

His touch seemed so light on each flower that the petals hardly moved. When I zoomed in on him you can see the intricacy of his wings.

 A true wonder of nature.

Taking pictures of the world around me always fascinates and inspires me. Just by looking at these few flowers and the insects that populate them I understand why I take the pictures I do. Not just for the technical challenge of producing a good picture but the sheer enjoyment of catching an image that shouts out Wow!

One day you never know I might succeed!

 Perhaps someone reading this who is more knowledgeable on flower identification than I am can tell me exactly what the flowers in today's post are please?

More Garden shots

After the less than perfect shots displayed yesterday I tried again to get a shot of the normally frequent birds in our back garden.
The only one that would come out to play was Mr Blackbird.

This shot is still not very sharp but at least colour and subject are good (if you can ignore the chicken house in the backgreound that is).

We have been fortunate this year to witness the first excursions from the nest of the Blackbird family into our garden. Even though we have cats they are doing well and can still be seen around the garden, just not on camera grrrrr!