Bees in the Garden

Macro Photography

Just some pictures featuring a couple of Bees buzzing around in my garden one afternoon in the summer. Photographed during the lockdown period in between running, working on the front garden and the day job. They are amazing to watch, bumbling all over the Hebe and alliums, including my Euphorbium.

There are a whole host of bees and the ones I see the most appearing in my garden are the honey bees, the bumble bee, digger bumble bees, hairy legged mini bees, red tailed bumble bees, leaf-cutter bees.

My gardens both front and back have shrubs and flowers to attract the bees such as Hebes, heleniums, rudbeckia, alliums, salvia, and echinacea.

I love just pottering about when needing some down time, watching the bees going about there business.

Thank you for stopping by my blog today

Bradfield Bash

Landscape Photography

Hello everyone. I have been a tad busy running around the trails of my local patch. This means I seldom get out with my camera. I purposely took a day off work after a local race route sparked some interest in me to leave my trail shoes behind for the walking boots and the 6d.

The Bradfield Bash is a 5 mile  race provided by Rivelin Running Events. The route starts from Low Bradfield and works its way around the cricket pitch then up a path behind it leading out on to Smallfield Lane. Then a bit further along the road there is footpath by the bridge (that traverses the Rocher End Brook), then through some woods and a zig-zag route to beneath and  up and over the top of the crags. It eventually takes you down to the reservoir and then back to the cricket ground.

Today (29th July) I was walking,  my route was a little different and it took me near to the cemetery of High Bradfield Church and on to an old motte and bailey castle known as Bailey Hill. I took some pictures on my phone. I will cover this another time.

I headed towards my running route, and it was fair weather for a while and then the light was not always optimal so the filters and goodness knows what came out. I forgot momentarily how to do things with the camera.

The route takes you beneath the crag, a bracken edged path in and out of woodland, edged by grazing fields for lots of sheep. I could here people when I was taking the picture below; this area is also popular with climbers. When I walked along the top, there were iron stakes in position in various places for top ropes.

The path comes to a wonderful viewing point, a stony seat that looks out over Agden. The light was not favourable at the time to get a decent shot, the sun was in my face. The seat was the star of the show.

Along the top of Rocher Head, like any cliff edge it is a windy affair. Finding a suitable spot to get the camera out was not easy. There is a bit of an optical illusion looking at at Agden, it looks like it sloping back. I assure you the horizon is straight. Also from this view along the crags, you can see the Dale Dyke and the Strines reservoirs, Win Hill which resides over at Ladybower. This particular view towards the left on the horizon is back towards Sheffield.

Finally the path descends into another grazing field, of which having walked part way up it to get beneath the crags, I spotted a hawthorn amongst the bracken.

Thank you for stopping by my blog today.

#rivelinrunningevents, #bradfieldbash

Stay safe.

Dunster Beach

Landscape Photography

View towards Hinckley Point

A visit to Minehead back in September to visit my partner’s parents, we had an adventure which took us into the pine woods of Dunster Castle, and this turned out to be a bit of a bad idea. We had a bad day with map reading skills and a sense of direction.

We decided to head back to the car and drop down to Dunster Beach. It was very sunny and warm for the 1st September. We arrived to a  massive expanse of beach; sand, stones, the sea was miles away with the tide was receding and it was windy. Not perfect conditions at all for any sensible photography. You never know what you can muster up when your filters are always packed.  The hard grads, polariser and the little stopper had an outing too.

The harsh sunlight proved very difficult to photograph anything, if it was not the shadows in the way, it was finding something to photograph without my shadow. The beach has a number of wooden defence groynes. They are laid out in such a way that they provided private mini beaches not too far from the beach huts.

I like the way the wooden stumps are quite uniform and regular and how they rise and fall on the beach. At the top of the beach there were lots of thistles, and you had to be careful where you put your feet. I did trip over some spreading thistle tendrils. Well you know I do often take the odd tumble. Luckily i was left with a nothing more than tingly big toe.

From the beach you can see coast of South Wales and Hinckley Point. The beach was busy with dog walkers and visitors enjoying the early September afternoon sunshine.

 

View of towards the coast of South Wales

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The Great Ridge

Landscape Photography

 

 

Hello. I haven’t been around much of late. I must, in the first instance, apologise to the people I follow, and to the people who have recently made comments and contacted me. I haven’t been doing much photography and therefore not much blogging.  I have undertaken another interest, it is called running. Having had some personal issues over the past couple of years I had to focus on sorting and getting back into some semblance of myself. I have been running like a woman possessed and doing stuff in a gym. I am feeling much better, fitter and a lot lighter in stature. I will hopefully be back doing some blogging from time to time and try and catch up with some of the bloggers that i follow.

After a few months out of the frame, as it were, I managed to spend a day with my photographer friend Darren Galpin. We are always in hope to photograph a sunrise weather inversion – mist in the valley below. We never got one on this particular day, however we do joke about it, that it would happen on day when we were not going to shoot or for when I have to go to work instead. A couple of days after this shoot, the perfect conditions arose whilst driving to work. Ce la vie!

We were greeted by some early birds, which was a surprise, more than 10 cars in the car park before sun – up!. Then it was ‘pitch wars’ on Mam Tor as there a few other photographers about, amongst some day, dog, even husky dog walkers and fell runners all before 9am. It is a honeypot, and I am glad to be showing it off.

The sunrise was not particularly spectacular, however I managed to get a few shots in the golden hour before heading off to Back Tor for some tree pictures. The two hawthorns companion is the moon.  It was exceptionally windy here and very cold in comparison the lone trees.

In all of the images created I used  .6ND and the .9ND graduated soft filters.Two of the images I used the little stopper with a grad .6ND; to create a soft movement in the clouds on the Golden Hour Mam Tor, and the wispy lower branches of the pine tree in Back Tor Pine. The beauty about using the little stopper is that the exposure time is not as long, and you do not always need to set the camera into bulb mode. This depends on what you want to create in the shot.

We set out to do Mam Tor to Back Tor along the Great Ridge, it was getting very bright and a lot of footfall by 9am. We had managed to get something for our early morning labours. Although we did not do the whole walk from Castleton, the full circular walk itself was voted number 10 in the ITV 100 Best Walks in Great Britain, the link for the map is here

 

Thank you for stopping by my blog today.

Swallet Waterfall

Landscape

ISO50  F16  8sec 17mm

 

A little gem me and my friend Darren found between Eyam and Foolow in the Derbyshire Peak District. I will go back after more downpours of rain. We have lacked rain and snow this winter, a trickle is all we have.

Can you see any faces?

 

Amble Links Beach

Seascape

ISO50 F16 0.5sec 17mm

You will have to forgive me for this image is similar to the previous one, however I want to show the sun pillar, the ray of light rising vertically from the setting sun. It may not be the most dramatic sun pillar however it is there; only just!

Sun pillars occur when sunlight reflects off the surface of falling ice crystals in association with cirrus clouds such as cirrostratus. These form at 20,000ft above sea level. This phenomenon occurs during sunrise or sunset. They can form above or below the sun.

Thanks for stopping by today.