Lazy, crazy, hazy days...

Well for this week at least...summer has arrived...long hot summer days greet me when I wake - it is a delight to be in England when the weather is like this... and we all know to make the most of it as it could break anytime and all will change...

Well the week started with me covering a Concert given by the Sing Choir group of choirs based in this part of Cambridgeshire. Venue was the ever-so-posh Tattersalls Auction Room in Newmarket - I was shooting during the full rehearsal so had to work around lighting and sound guys, but the choir members sang beautifully and I managed to get some nice shots...

Dropped them off at the clients yesterday - email last night telling me how pleased they are with them - the aim is a happy client...so success...!!!

Well after that and the school portrait shoot the previous Thursday I had a large backlog of images to post process. Now I work on a 10% return - that is 10% of the images I take should be usable. 10% is about average for a working pro... so to get 100 images I have to take 1000. The two shoots mentioned above - yielded just under 1000 images which have produced nearly 200 usable images - so that is a good return. However, they were taken in controlled conditions with uniform lighting.  Natural history is completely different. I usually take about 200 images a day - 1400 a week and usually get maybe 80-100 usable images... you can see the discard rate - the only difference between a pro and an amateur is that the pro deletes more images...  In between editing these images I did manage to get out and about; either onto the fen or along my favourite walk in Ely...

alsike clover...

wasp and figwort

5-spot burnet moth...

6-spot burnet moth....

peacock butterfly...

bristly oxtongue...

speckled bush-cricket...

speckled wood butterfly...

great willowherb...

A nice return from a couple of hours shooting over two two days...

My most recent trips to Wicken Fen have resulted in some of my favourite images (well until the next trip anyway!). The following four images are of wild carrot (Daucus carrota) - sometimes known as Queen Anne's Lace. I have been thinking for a while now about the best way to capture this plant... I think the next few images does it justice...I hope you do too...

Today (Saturday) I had a wander around the fen in the heat of the day... bad for inverts - they move far too quickly when it's hot... but I managed some plants...

Fen bedstraw...

red bartsia...

upright hedge parsley...

yellow rattle...

All of them delightful... but if you want some invertebrates... here are a few from the other day...(they were still hard work)...

banded demoiselle...

brimstone...

cinnabar moth caterpillar - looking like it is about to enter into some sort of alien warfare...

common blue butterfly...

common blue damselfly...

emerald damselfly...

ruddy darter...

So not a bad week really... I am happy with my natural history shots and it is always enjoyable to photograph people - all I need is a model...!

As ever keep up with my comings and goings here... or here... or even...here...

I hope you all have a good week...

TTFN

Thunderbolts...

So a week of thunderstorms... some of Biblical proportions like the one I can see right now from my ever darkening office... Summer eh? I suppose that is what we usually expect... never mind, we could always move to Australia if we wanted hot sunshine...

It's been a strange week - seeming I have been busy - what with insurance shoots at the beginning of the week, followed by a client meeting on Wednesday and then a staff portrait shoot on Thursday. I almost completed my dragonfly survey at Wicken Fen on Friday, before getting the car MoT'd on Saturday and then a concert shoot this afternoon. Combine all that with usual household stuff and it's been a hectic few days...


Staff portraits are fun to shoot - you get to meet many different people,  but it does help if they take a good picture...

When I did get out and about to look at nature I did manage to find...

gatekeeper butterfly - love these, although capturing them is tricky... always on the move...

greater willowherb... easily overlooked as it is so common, but beautiful if you look at it...

second generation of peacock butterflies which emerged this week... new ones are such brilliant creatures... and to think they can hibernate...

red admiral - striking colours and large size make them a welcome addition to the garden...

Roesel's bush cricket...desperately trying to escape my lens...the lengt of time I spent trying to get this shot would shock you...

soldier beetles on grass... I was taken with the combination of colours here - bright orange and green...

brown argus butterfly - they used to be uncommon but have recently expanded their range - always worth looking out for... a delight...

bird's-foot trefoil dreamlike against the grass stems... that's how it looked to me as I lay in a meadow chasing grasshoppers...

Whilst carrying out a dragonfly survey on Wicken Fen I was fortunate enough to find some of my favourite plants...

arrowhead...

flowering rush...

gypsywort...

water-mint...

all a delight and all welcome... Whilst out and about on the Fen I also found this chap...

four-banded longhorn beetle - not massively common and striking to say the least...

So that takes us to the concert shoot today - images will be featured in next weeks blog as I haven't edited them as yet... it was however an interesting and enjoyable shoot - the choir sang beautifully and the setting, Tattersalls Auction Rooms (where they sell very, VERY expensive race horses) in Newmarket had some fascinating architecture...

Hopefully this week I can escape the confines of this office and shoot some more natural history images - what I really need is a model... anyone volunteering?

Keep up with my daily antics here... or here... whichever you prefer,,, and I hope to see you all next week...

TTFN

And the sun came out and the rain let up...

...only it didn't...it has been an appalling week weather-wise here in the Fens; whilst the rest of the UK were relatively dry, we have had several days of rain...persistent. heavy rain... it's July...so once again, tricky to get out and shoot...

I did manage some though...

one of the true bugs... not sure of the ID - specialist work that, but I love the colours

comma butterfly... posing nicely for me. Gold against green is a great colour combination...

common darter - this is what's known as a teneral... meaning it has not long emerged, has still to develop colours and as yet the wings haven't yet hardened. A great time to photograph these insects as they sit still for as long as possible.

Creeping thistle flowers... such a delightful colour...

comma butterfly again but from a different angle...

a composite of images - small skipper butterfly; again the gold against the green...

Common vetch and crested dog's tail - lovely, summer vegetation

wood dock flowers... such a brilliant pinky red...

this had me stumped to start with, goat's-rue apparently... one of the vetches all the same...

yarrow... lovely to see, anywhere and everywhere...

But apart from that and a couple more... it has been a quiet week for my Nikons... Yesterday morning I did manage to get out first thing and captured this...

garden honeysuckle - helped with a bit of fill flash...

And at the end of the day I managed this...(my favourite shot of the whole week)

hoverfly on white bryony... I just love the colours and shapes... the out of focus elements contrasting to the sharpness of the insect on the flower...

Not much else has happened unfortunately... I can only hope that the weather improves and I can get out and about...

Updates can be found here... or on my Flickr site so I hope to see you there...

TTFN...