It’s quite fascinating what a drop of dew and a ray of sunshine can do to a spiders web. Most of the year they go quite unnoticed, but during the misty autumnal mornings the whole garden seems to be full of them.
Webs
Short Break II
In the last post I mentioned that during our short break I had been prompted to start a new B&W project. Although the project is currently still in the planning phase, I can say that I was very inspired by a visit to the Swiss Open Air Museum in Ballenberg. A museum exhibiting over one hundred old houses and farm buildings in a rural atmosphere. Today’s images are just a small selection captured whilst wandering through the museum.
Short Break
Having a bit of holiday, wife and I decided to have a few days away. The photos I took were nothing particularly startling, but I did take several indoor B&W images using natural light which prompted me to lance a new photo project… more about that in a later blog post.
To cut a long story short we travelled up a mountain pass or two and spent the first night in Interlaken and the second night in a very large cream tub in Bulle. (We enjoyed our first cheese fondue of the season at Hotel/Restaurant La Cabriolle in Bulle, spending the night in one of their theme rooms. We chose the cream tub which we thought very appropriate, being in the Gruyere region. It also caused much amusement climbing in and out of bed).
Morning Mist
I had hoped to capture bright images of the sun breaking through the early morning autumn mist. But as I set off (reasonably) early on Sunday morning I realised that I may well have to wait longer than I thought. Indeed it wasn’t until I was already sipping my midday coffee back home that the sun began to make it’s presence felt. Nevertheless with or without sunshine autumn mist never fails to fascinate me, as does the very special smell of autumn.
Big Birds
Today was one of those rare occasions when I was very happy to have a reasonable zoom lens. It’s not the newest, it’s doesn’t have auto focus, but over 30 years ago not many lenses did. Just a quick fiddle with a couple of the K-30s settings and I was able to use it with comparative ease, but I missed several ‘birds in flight’ shots because by the time I had focused our little feathered friends had already landed.
An idle afternoon
Having spent Saturday pulling out weeds, reclaiming the garden path from the ever encroaching grass and generally doing a bit of cosmetic gardening, I decided to spend Sunday doing very little. While a couple of chickens spent the afternoon roasting in the smoker, I spent a pleasant couple of hours keeping the temperature constant, reading the newspaper and wandering about with my camera. Here are the resulting images from a very relaxing afternoon.
Summer-fourteen 12
This evening my holiday draws to a close and so too does my Summer-fourteen project. Summer 2014 may not go down in history as the warmest or sunniest on record, and photography wise I have experienced more productive summers, but I’ve had fun and that’s surely what it’s all about. With these few alpine images, taken last Friday, I’ll wind up the summer project… and start looking forward to Autumn 🙂
Summer-fourteen 11
Wife and I had been meaning to visit Bellinzona for quite some time, yesterday was the big day. With only three hours in the city we just had time for a pizza, a visit to the big castle (Castelgrande) and of course a coffee. Here are a few images.
Summer-fourteen 10
With the summer holidays now over, today would normally mean the end of my summer project “Summer-fourteen”. However, because I am now on holiday I have decided to extend the project for a further week.
I’m not famous for my interest in sport, but even I couldn’t fail to notice that the European Athletics Championships were being held in Zurich. Although I stayed well away from the stadium, I did venture in to the city yesterday afternoon for a stroll around the “City Festival” which held various attractions and events and brought an athletic feeling to the city centre.
Summer-fourteen 9
A week has passed since my last posting, and I’m quite pleased I didn’t commit myself to posting at least one photo per day or something similar. Not that photographic motivation is lacking, but I’ve been leaving the camera at home during the week and have had my nose buried deep in a book during the journey to and from work instead. Yesterday saw me once again pottering in the garden and subsequently relaxing with a beer and the K30 in the late afternoon sunshine. Perhaps I should have made an attempt to free the garage roof from all manner of plant life but somehow capturing images of it was far more fun.
