Snow

It's been a while since I've been on here

My New Year Resolution is to take more pictures

Yesterday we had some snow which we went out to enjoy - I hope you do

The Lane

A Peaceful Scene in the Lane

Traffic in the Lane, Two Wheels No Problem

The Maen Llwyd, but you would not know it

Regards
Andy

Old St Mellons Fete 2011

I only had a few minutes to pop over to the village fete this year and decided to take a long rather than standard lens. This means you can be unobtrusive and get some interesting pictures rather than just crowd shots.

So here are a selection from the day.

1. WHY have they given me a spoon to eat this Ice Cream ?

2. Careful !

 3. I CAN have a manly conversation whilst holding onto a pink balloon animal - Honest!

4. Who are you looking at ?

And my favorite...

5. I AM going to eat this hot dog even if it's nearly as big as I am !

It was a nice day and it was really good to see people out enjoying themselves

Grassfire in Old St Mellons

On the way home tonight we saw smoke streaming from a field near the houses in the area where we live

On close inspection it turned out to be a grass fire in a field started apparently by 2 local youths seen throwing what looked like a cigarette into the field

We stopped and phoned the fire brigade and then I started taking pictures (see social responsibility comes first ! )

Here's a selection

The view that greeted us

Fire Brigade on the scene and rolling out hoses

Putting it out

Damping down

I should have cropped that foot out !

All I can say is thank goodness we have these guys as well as the idiots in the world!

My Tree in Spring

In an earlier post I claimed a tree

I can't keep away .. it keeps calling and last night I caught it with the dun in the perfect position for some sunset silhouette pictures

In taking these type of pictures I admit to being entirely in my comfort zone because it's almost impossible to mess them up and only very limited skills and technique are needed

Take this for example

Stand in such a position that the sun is behind the tree.. it makes a nice silhouette and puts a glow around the tree.

Compose a picture on the basic rule of thirds (most interesting object 1/3 in and 1/3 up from the bottom)

Wait for the cloud to move far enough to not mess up the nice glowing area

Press click

OK so maybe that's too much cloud in the picture ...

Stand still for another 2 minutes

Press click

Well that may be a bit too much tree for some...

zoom out

Press click

Too dark?

Zoom in so a bit less bright sky shows and the camera picks up only the lighter part of the sky

I admit that I feel in my comfort zone taking these type of pictures

Some people have wonderful artistic vision and can see the unusual in any scene. I'm not one of them, but I think I can appreciate a nice view when I see one and if no-one else likes them at least I can say that I enjoyed the 20 minutes I spent standing in the sunshine appreciating the beauty of the skies

Homeward Bound

One of the nice things about My Tree is that it's got a wonderful view back towards home so whichever way you turn there is a picture

Snow shots are often criticised for being somewhat grey so I don't know what the purists will think of my orange snow, but this was the view a few minutes after the last shot in the My Tree section. I used a fairly small aperture (f16) because I wanted a good depth of field on this picture, and +0.7 ev (exposure variance) to keep the snow bright even thought I was shooting into the sun. 

Clearly a couple of blown highlights in the sun and one at the bottom, in the reflection, but I'm going to not worry too much I'm not a pixel peeper

The long and winding road is the way home. it's about 2 miles and along the way there are many fine pictures to be seen. This one is a little closer to home I've only about a mile to go before I will be warm...

or so it seems because this was actually a few days before and I was going in the other direction and had to shelter in the pub when the blizzard landed ....

At least that's my excuse.

In this picture I opened up the aperture to F8 which is a good compromise in terms of depth of field and still being bright enough for a reasonable shutter speed. Once again +0.7 ev because it's predominantly a white scene 

Using exposure variance in this way is important in pictures that are dominated by Bright or dark because scenes because your camera will try to adjust to an average  

We DID make it home eventually...

My Tree

A couple of years ago I was persuaded to go to our local real ale establishment by my dear wife (she's always referred to as such when she drags me to beer)

Sitting outside in the beer garden we were treated to a wonderful sunset and enjoyed the last of our drinks as the sun slid down behind the church.

It was a little cold so we headed off and, to our delight as we got onto the top road and had a better view the sky turned a deep rich orange colour and the views were spectacular.

I knew that I needed to find a spot to take pictures and I needed to find it fast so we headed quickly to a place where I had stopped to take a shot of a tree in a field about a year previously

I was not disappointed





Tree in a fiery Sky

  

As the darkness drew in the fire did not abate and I settled in to enjoy the view but it got harder t take pictures this is handheld at 1/15th



Up Close and Personal with my tree in the dark

Since then I have been back in the sun and I've enjoyed a number of visits to "My Tree"



My Tree enjoying some sunshine

  

 I've been there in the snow as well ...

In the Snow

So why sound so possessive.

Well on walking around a local Christmas market I came upon a picture of a tree I recognized. It's not this one it's the one in the field across the road from it. I've since found another local photographer to takes pictures of that tree as well .. and I have to admit so do I, but until now I've not seen another picture of "My Tree" so I'm claiming it.

I have no rights to it I understand and I quite expect that there has been someone out there recently eyeing it up and event taking some quite excellent pictures of it, but when I'm there and I'm the one enjoying the view I like to think I've found a little somewhere special of my own .

I'm sure someone will prove me wrong

I'm also sure I've not yet recaptured the majesty of that first night - I will need to try harder