Post 14- The end of Summer and the Second Wave

 The abundance of insect life is coming to an end and we are slowly moving towards Autumn.

The weather has still been dry enough to get out. Covid Restrictions have meant we have made a larger number of shorter trips to places closer to home. The rule of six has made mixing with fellow photographers more difficult. Despite the difficulties we have still enjoyed our trips and produced worthwhile images. Here is a selection.

We are hoping to go to Northumberland next week but there is a real risk that our holiday may be cancelled or curtailed by the imposition of travel bans made necessary by the Second Wave of Covid 19 infections. Fingers crossed.

Post 13- Butterflies and Bugs and a little creativity

 The good weather has provided an opportunity for Field Trips and I have greatly enjoyed organising them. We have been on at least one Field Trips each week, many with camera club colleagues, others just Moy and I. We are fortunate to have many nature reserves within a short drive of our home.

The easing of restrictions has resulted in an alarming number of people going out into the countryside and the behaviour of many of them has been appalling. Piles of discarded camping, picnic and barbeque litter have been abandoned and left for volunteers to clean up.

The opening of Pubs and Restaurants has led to spikes in Coronavirus infections as many of the patrons fail to follow social distancing advice. The campaign slogan "Don't Kill your Granny" has unfortunately NOT resulted in a reduction in this type of behaviour and has increased our concern. 

We seem to be the only ones still being careful. We plan to keep out of shops, pubs and restaurants for the foreseeable future and are choosing outdoor venues that are not attracting crowds.

We have both become quite adept at finding and photographing Butterflies, Dragonflies, Grasshoppers and Crickets. Putting names to these creatures is a challenge as there are so many varieties.

Here are some of my favourite shots from the past four weeks.

 

A visit to Calke Abbey provided an opportunity be a little more creative. I am quite pleased with these  images.

 

Post 12- 100 days in lockdown and restrictions are easing

The Coronavirus lockdown has been going on now for over 100 days and as infection rates reduce the government are now easing up on some of the restrictions. All around us we see people young and old apparently ignoring social distancing measures and this makes us very nervous. We have seen packed beaches and massive demonstrations on the TV and are very apprehensive. The Pubs are allowed to open tomorrow and this coincides with a match between Derby and Nottingham Forest.  We are anticipating a very difficult day for our three family members in the police force who will have to try and control those fans who choose to cause trouble.
The easing in restrictions has had some small positive effects in as much as we have been able to go out taking photographs with members of Ockbrook Photo Club and the Macro Photography Group. We have been very careful to keep our distance and have all enjoyed getting out and about again.

All my recent photographs have been of wild flowers or insects and I must admit I enjoyed taking these more than I ever thought I would. The insects particularly are rarely still and present a real challenge.

I was quite please with the upward view of poppies made possible by taking a mirror with me.

I also made an interesting kaleidoscope effect using Photoshop to modify an image of gorse berries.

Post 11- Zoom Zoom!

Without the opportunity to meet up face to face with fellow photographers we have been forced to develop new methods for sharing ideas. This has led to the discovery of the Zoom programme that means we can all join together using our Computers or Tablets and have discussions and share ideas. Both the Macro Photo Group and Ockbrook Photo Club have been holding regular meetings and it has been really nice to "meet" with the many friends I have gained through membership of these organisations.
Both Clubs have arranged to have guest speakers and it has proved to be a surprisingly effective way of watching presentations.
The Ockbrook Club have been doing a series of technical demonstrations using Photoshop and Affinity and we have learned a number of useful techniques that will facilitate to production of composite images. I have been working on composite images for some months but am learning new ways of combining elements and hopefully the quality of my work will improve.
Here are a few of my recent images.

 I was also challenged by Valda Bailey to produce images that evoked the Coronavirus and I produced a couple of ones that might be suitable as Public Information Posters.

Post 10- Ten weeks into Lockdown

We have now been in lockdown for 10 weeks and it seems we have many more weeks to look forward to. We can now travel further away from home to take our exercise but with no public toilets open we are still bound to stay close to home. The weather has been excellent so we have been able to spend a lot of time outdoors but this week saw a return to the more normal wet and windy weather.

I have taken very few new images recently but have been revisiting ones from my archives and giving them a new treatment. The following set of images is an example of the use of overlays to transform the mood of images.

Original

 

This set shows three different treatments again through the use of overlays.

Most of our exercise walks have been on the roads around our estate but we now have the chance to travel a little further and have discovered some new local footpaths and wooded areas.

I have also been experimenting with close up photography of insects. Surprisingly the damselflies were in our own garden pond and seemed happy to pose for me.

 All in all this has been a very productive period but it will be nice to get out and about a bit more.