Chilly River

What's this? Almost two years without a peep and now a picture of a frozen river?

Yep.

The Daugava river in fact, in Riga. Just the day before it had pretty much started to thaw, but the temperature fell overnight and refroze sections of it, trapping bits of ice that had broken off further upstream and were busy trying to escape to the sea.

More soon ... maybe. Perhaps don't hold your breath.

Autumn Morning

We went for a walk in our local park on Saturday morning and saw some of the colours that will be around for the next few weeks.

Last year the trees all seemed to change overnight - almost like they had all been waiting for each other and then started a great race. This year they are taking their time, changing one at a time, which means the colours last for much longer.

The photo below is my favourite from the morning (yeah OK, I mucked around with the dodge and burn tools in Photoshop a bit, but it looks good). This is from the same stand of trees that I shot last November. Last year all the trees were at the same stage, whereas this year you can still see green in the background.

Nikon D200, AF-S 18-200mm VR
1/320sec, f/7.1

Autumnal Eye

It's good to see that Autumn is back where it's meant to be - last year the season started very late, but this year the leaves had started falling and mornings had become cold and misty by the start of this month. I do like a good Autumn.

Last week on one of the aforementioned misty morns London remained shrouded even after I arrived at the office. Working on the 25th floor of one of the highest buildings in the area makes for some fantastic views. I took this photo of the London Eye and it came out a bit noisy and blurry - so I converted it to black and white and added a bit more noise for effect.

Sony DSC-T200

Splash

What with all the rain we've been having in the UK recently there hasn't been the opportunity for rambles outdoors to capture nice summer images. So, instead, one day last week while the rain was hammering down on the conservatory roof I sat just inside the door for a while and attempted to get a shot of the raindrops splashing onto the patio outside.

This really is just pot-luck - its very difficult to time a shot like this: by the time you register a moment it's gone. It's simply a case of firing off a load of shots and reviewing them later.

So, how did I do? Not great - this image was the best of over one hundred clicks, and the drop is just out of focus. Next time will be better - and maybe I'll remember to use a flash.

Nikon 18-200mm VR at 200mm, 1/90sec, f/5.6

Berry husks

Not entirely sure what happened to all the berries on this tree. I thought birds ate the whole berry, but perhaps they have just taken the juicy middle out and left the skins. Or maybe the cold, snowy weather has something to do with it.

Nikon 60mm, f6.3, 1/1000sec, ISO-800 (by mistake)

Crocus, Crocuses, Croci

On one of the roads in my estate there is a huge number of crocuses (or croci?) that pop up every spring. These were all buried in the snow last week, but they seem to have survived relatively unscathed.

 

Nikon 60mm, f8, 1/800sec                               Nikon 60mm, f9,1/250sec

More snow (for real this time)

The UK went into lock-down today. Not because of the latest wave of letter bomb scares, but because of a few inches of snow. Every time it happens someone says this country needs to be better prepared next time (today it was Jack Straw), and every time it's like the first time we've seen a bit of bad weather - websites go down with the number of people checking the forecast, the trains stop running or have to run slow, the roads close. A nice bit of chaos all round. Hopefully tomorrow will be better as I'm planning on going to Woking for a birthday party.

Anyway, here's a couple of shots from today - both taken with the Sigma 30mm.

 

f/8, 1/60sec                                                       f8, 1/125sec

More snow

No, there hasn't been any more of the white stuff falling since last week (although it was pretty chilly out on the bike today). I just got around to going through last week's photos properly and I thought I'd post my favourite.

I liked the way the snow was clinging to the branches of this tree, and the colour of the sky was created by fooling the camera a little bit. Even though the sky was nowhere near this pink the white balance was a bit off-kilter trying to compensate for the colour of the street lights. All I had to do out of the camera on this one was a bit of cropping and sharpening before resizing for the web.

Sigma 30mm, f4, 1/10sec, ISO-800

Three days ago ...

Sigma 30mm at f4.5, 1/25 sec, ISO1000

Can't believe it was only three days ago that I was saying that the seasons were becoming confused and winter may have been skipped! Above are the same daffodils that I blogged on Sunday - not looking happy now are they? Below is another shot from my walk to the station this morning. Apologies for the lack of quality - it was still pretty dark, I was hurried so didn't get the perfect settings and I don't have any decent editing software at work to play with the settings too much without making everything look awful.

Sigma 30mm at f5, 1/25 sec, ISO1000

Spring already?

Guess I missed winter. Me and some Daffodils both. This was taken today.

Its a bit of a rubbish photo, but I was surprised to see these so early in the year. It has been pretty warm for January and I guess its easy to get confused if no-one bought you a calendar for Christmas. Anyone got a tortoise that's out of hibernation yet?

As soon as the cold weather does get round to paying us a visit these flowers are going to wonder what's going on with the world.

Back garden colours

Another Autumn related photo - OK, last one I promise. This one was taken in my back garden - we have an old garden chair that came with the house and has been sitting out in all weathers for years. I wouldn't trust the chair for supporting my weight any more, so it just stays in a corner, forgotten. Looks good with leaves on it though.

Nikon 18-200mm VR at 18mm, F3.5, 1/10sec

Journey to work

I'm normally quite rushed on the way to work in the morning - I leave the house late or dawdle a little on the way so can't stop if I'm going to catch the train on time. Then, by the time I do get to London, I've allowed myself to sleep on the journey and am not really awake enough to pay attention to what's about. When leaving work for the day, at this time of year, there's no light left.

This means that even if I do have my camera with me I don't use it. I carry the camera around to keep me thinking about my surroundings, and often find myself wasting it.

One day this last week I thought I'd see if I could do it different. It was a nice sunny morning and some of the trees were still looking their best, so I got some shots - both on the way from my house to the station and then also a couple between the train and the office.

This picture is from a tree on my way to the train station in Milton Keynes. There's a group of three or four of these and they have this amazing colour and are keeping their leaves well.

Nikon 18-200mm at 50mm, f7.1, 1/15sec

This picture is of some of the trees in Gordon Square in London. This square has been closed for ages while some work is done on the fences and paths, so no-one can actually go in - this was taken from outside on the North side. I was hoping that the work in the square would be finished by now, but progress seems slow. Fortunately I still managed to get this shot with the sun shining through, and showing the colours.

Nikon 18-200mm at 31mm, f7.1, 1/125sec

Photoshopping

Was playing around a bit with one of the images I posted the other day and created a couple of nice versions. First is a straight black and white conversion. Second is my 'the aliens are coming' shot - looks like it came out of the X-Files or any other generic sci-fi film of the last couple of decades.

 

Autumn colours, finally

Autumn is my favourite season - the weather starts cooling down, the mornings are nice and fresh and the leaves on the trees all start to change colour before they drop. But isn't autumn supposed to begin in September? Either at the start of that month, or on the 21st depending on whether you hold with the meteorologists or the astrologists. We've had the odd tree here and there turning colours over the past month or two, but nothing special. Then, over the last week they've all gone in one mad rush. Maybe this happens every year and I've never noticed it before, or maybe the warm September and October we had really are signs of global warming.

Anyway, I went out on my bike on Saturday morning to capture some of the colour before it all starts to disappear for another year. I went down from my house to Teardrop Lakes, which is only a short distance away, and spent a pleasant hour ambling around shooting a bit. The trip was cut short due to getting a puncture in my front tire - I'd have like to have stayed out longer and gone on somewhere else, but decided to head home and see what I'd got. Here's my favourites. Click the pics for larger versions.

Nikon 18-200VR at 20mm, f7.1, 1/100sec

 

18mm, f7.1, 1/30sec                        18mm, f8, 1/200sec