WHAT IS “BOKEH”? It’s a Japanese word with no direct translation, but it describes the aesthetically appealing blur in the background of images like the one above. It describes the smooth, painterly and attractive blurring of colours and also the blurred circles where there are highlights. Bokeh is highly desirable in images as it […]
What a fabulous day this turned out to be! The idea to hold a Fine Art Photography Course came to me when I first visited The Botanist in Alderley Edge late last year. It is a beautiful and unusually styled venue, with botany and gardening inspired props and plenty of distressed and stained wood panelling. If I’d […]
The wet and mild conditions of Autumn provide the perfect growing conditions for fungi and this exceptionally mild Autumn means that there’s lots around at the moment, without having to look too hard. They have their own kingdom completely separate to plants and animals and there are tens of thousands of different kinds. They are fascinating to […]
In the first of this series we looked at How to Photograph Trees (click on the link if you missed it). This time we’re going to concentrate on how to photograph Autumn leaves and capture their many glorious colours, shapes and textures. It’s all about the Light. Well of course it is as without light we wouldn’t have […]
I LOVE Autumn (or Fall, for our friends across the pond!). Summer is fab while it lasts but around the start of September I yearn to wear fleecy jumpers and knitted hats, to walk through woodland, seeing my breath as white clouds, kicking through fiery coloured leaves with my wellies, spotting weird fungi on tree stumps and […]
On a very sunny Tuesday in mid-September I headed off to Bluebell Cottage Gardens for the last flower photography course for this year. It made a change to be 100% confident in the weather forecast and not be mentally preparing a plan B in case it poured down. The sunshine was streaming into the tea rooms as […]
I’ve been to two wonderful Cheshire gardens this week and taken lots of photographs as you can imagine. I was accompanied to each garden with a different man (!), both also armed with cameras and reached some interesting conclusions that are summed up by the sculpture above. Two photographers looking at exactly the […]
How to photograph flowers and what kit do you need. My passion and love for photography started many years ago with flowers. Using a compact camera stuck on AUTO I would try my best to photograph a particularly stunning flower and more often than not was frustrated or disappointed with the results. Between now and […]
Our little cornish break came to an end all to soon, but I managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Glendurgan, a National Trust garden, on the last morning. Miraculously I was able to drag Abii out of bed and persuaded her to come with me (anything was preferable to packing). This is a garden more about […]
The RHS Tatton Flower Show gets scribbled on the calendar 1st January each year and we haven’t missed one yet, but this time it was pipped at the post by The Chelsea Flower Show, booked before the calendar was even out of its packet. A few glasses of wine and a bracing walk on a North […]
Gardens, hedgerows and meadows are bursting with glorious blooms and the sight of them lifts my spirits. The pollen laden, brightly coloured flowers attract the bees and the butterflies and suddenly it really feels like Summer, especially in the glorious sunny weather we’re experiencing. Local gardens and nurseries have been busy with shoppers feeling confident enough to buy bedding […]
Family trips out to gardens are a rare event these days, with Tweenager preferring to launch sheep at buildings on Minecraft and Teenager happy to spend all day watching Dr Who re-runs. But I managed to entice them away from their screens with promises of penguins and flamingoes in nearby Mobberley. Nic and I had visited […]
