How else should you spend the morning of your 60th birthday but go on a bug-hunt with members of your camera club at a local nature reserve?
Duck End Nature Reserve in Maulden is only about 15 minutes drive from where I live, but I hadn’t known it was there before.
All photographs were taken with a Canon 100mm F2.8 Macro lens, but some serious cropping was needed on some of them!
As part of the Polperro Festival, Cornish Queen tribute band “The Good old Fashioned Lover Boys” played a free set in a marquee in the village square. I had no idea what to expect but they were actually really good!
Tim Kellow as Freddie Mercury
Scott Lawlor as Brian May
Liam Bennett as Roger Taylor
Sian Kelly as John Deacon
Jack Callow as Spike Edney
And – always good to turn the camera on the crowd!
Another visit to our favourite place in the world – Cornwall!
Looe
We stayed in a cottage just north of Looe. The twin towns of East and West Looe are separated by the estuary.
Jamaica Inn
The old coaching inn in the middle of Bodmin Moor was made famous by Daphne Du Maurier in her novel of the same name.
Mevagissey
The fishing port of Mevagissey lies around 5 miles south of St. Austell. The village has very narrow streets so it’s best to leave your car at the car park at the top and walk down into the village. The twin harbour is very distinctive.
Polperro
Another fishing village with narrow streets, Polperro is just down the road from Looe. It was the week of the Polperro Festival while we were down there and we witnessed an excellent performance by a Cornish “Queen” tribute band – that deserves its own blog post so more on that later!
Boscastle
Boscastle is another fishing village – this time on the north coast. Now fully rebuilt after the devastating flash flood that washed cars and buildings into the sea in 2004.
One week in Cornwall isn’t long enough. We shall return….
The river embankment in Bedford is always a pleasant place for a Sunday-afternoon walk with the camera.
The Embankment Bridge
View from the Embankment Bridge
The Longholme – a good place to stop for a coffee and a cake. They also hire out boats.
The boating lake – view from the Longholme.
The Butterfly Bridge
Some cygnets on the grass next to the river.
But don’t get too close – Dad is keeping guard.
A crowd of Canadians – I think a group of geese is called a “gaggle”.
The waterfowl are occasionally disturbed by the odd canoe.
And back again.
The Swan Hotel.
The Weir. Why are those logs there?
View From a Bridge – the boat had just passed underneath.
The first Whitwell Steam Fair was held in 1998, in the village of Whitwell from which it takes its name, before moving to a larger site owned by the Bowes Lyon family in nearby St. Paul’s Walden. Since 2008 it has been held in Mansell’s Farm in Codicote. The Steam Fair is held to raise funds for MacMillan Cancer Support and features working steam engines as well as classic cars, tractors, military vehicles & motorcycles.
Crimson Lady – a Burrell Traction Engine, built in 1927.
Stanley Steam Car – c.1911
Hogwart – half-size model based on the famous road locomotive ‘Boadicea’ which was a WW1 heavy gun towing engine.
The Gaffer – Clayton & Shuttleworth General Purpose Engine, built in 1910
Fortunately not much to do for the medic!
Dad’s Army? A display by the Hertfordshire Home Guard Living History Group
John Fowler
The Blacksmith
The Gaffer (again)
Keeping it clean & Shiny
Crimson Wheel
Green spinning wheels.
The Little Giant
Having a chat
Foden C Type scale model
Enjoying the ride! (They’re in a carriage being pulled by a horse.)
The first of Hitchin Camera Club’s summer meetings was a “Scavenger Hunt” around the streets of Hitchin. About 20 of us took part and we had two hours to find and photograph 25 items on a list, before retiring to the Cooper’s Arms in Tilehouse Street for a pint (or two!).
The intention was to shoot the images with a view to cropping them into a square format so they could be displayed as a 5 x 5 grid. I used my Panasonic DMC-TZ70 rather than my DSLR because I could set that to shoot in square format. This was a big help in framing the shot when I took it and also saved a lot of time cropping later!
I found a bit of creativity was needed to get some of the subjects. Here are my efforts:
A Blue plaque
The word “Brick”
Two photographers
A stranger’s hand
Your reflection
A yellow flower
Old Writing
A repeating pattern
“Going Green”
Symmetry
An animal with 6 or more legs
A bird in flight
Something empty
Radial Lines
Something beginning with Q
A yellow front door
Graffiti
Something Spanish
The Hitchin logo
A small window
An interesting street light
A coloured tile
The Time
Ironworks
A historic date
It was the late May bank holiday weekend which meant that it was time for the Luton Carnival. As per the last few years, the carnival procession took a circular route around Wardown Park, starting and ending on the New Bedford Road. This year I positioned myself near the start rather than half-way round as I had done in previous years. Besides meaning there was less waiting for the procession to arrive, it also meant that the various groups were a bit closer together and they hadn’t had the time to spread out along the route.
All photographs taken with a Canon EOS 60D with a Tamron 70-300 lens and processed using Adobe Lightroom.
