Colours of Spring

Spring is just about over and I have decided to share a few of my favourite photos from the season. Some are representing the beautiful colours of this time of year and others not so much. All of the photos are taken in my yard. I could have gone out and investigated all of New Minas for a multitude of the colours and sites of spring but I found such abundance of it in my own yard, I decided to stay home and take advantage of it. I hope you enjoy these photographs as much as I enjoyed taking them.

Bugs

As promised, here is my next installment of photos. For this post I’ll be showing photos of bugs. This is my least favourite thing about the warm weather, but my favourite thing to photograph. I love using my micro lens. It’s old and a bit banged up but it still takes crisp clean pictures. As with my zoom lens this lens will not work in auto-focus mode on my camera.

There are four photos, all taken with the AF MICRO NIKKOR 1:2.8 D Nikon lens.

Enjoy my euwwww photos.

Earl

Once again, it’s been ages since my last post. I have decided to share with you some photos taken throughout the spring, summer & fall. This will be done over several posts in the next few weeks.

For my first post I’m going to share Earl with you. Earl is our resident squirrel. I think we get the same one most of the time, but I know there are a few more in the neighbourhood that come around as well. They too are known as Earl. There are 2 sets of photos, taken at different times and with different lenses.

The first 5 photos were taken midsummer, late afternoon, using a Nikon D5100 camera (this is used for all my photos) and the AF NIKKOR 80-200mm 1:2.8D lens. The camera is only a few years old with such settings as auto-focus and a myriad of other settings. The only reason I mention this is because the lens was originally bought for a much older less automatic camera and I don’t have the option of auto focus available. The last two photos were taken with the same camera but a different lens, the AF NIKKOR 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6G. This can be used as a totally automatic lens, auto focus, f-stops, shutter speed and ISO, which I took advantage of in taking these two photos. I found the quality of focus wasn’t quite as good as when I used manual focus, like in the previous photos and I couldn’t get quite as close up a photo as I would have liked. That being said I love the positions I got of the squirrel in with these photos compared to the others.

So what do you think Earl’s story is?
Does he/she come only to us or does he take advantage of other bird feeders in the neighbourhood?
Does he get chased away from other homes or is he/she as welcomed there as he/she is here?
How far does he come to partake in our feeder?
Does he/she have a brood back at the homestead?
Do the birds like sharing their feeder with Earl?
If you can think of a short story to go with these photos send them to me and I’ll share the best stories. I’d love to hear from you.

After the Storm…A winter wonderland.

Woke up yesterday morning to the most beautiful aftermath of a winter storm. Everything was sagging with white because the snow was so heavy. So I had to go out into the yard and take photographs with the hope of capturing some of the breathtaking beauty. I also went across the road to the park where the colours of the swings and slides were peeking through the snow. Here are just few of the photos I took. I hope you enjoy them.

A New Year, A New Image and New Ideas

I haven’t done much blogging in the last year but I am going to change that for 2016. I am now semi-retired from graphic design and will be concentrating more on my art and maybe a few crafts as well. As before I will once again be featuring local Nova Scotia or Canadian artists & photographers. I also thought I’d add some craft ideas. For now I am going to do the research needed to find an artist of the month and a photographer of the month for February. If you know of anyone you think I should feature please let me know. I’m always up for your thoughts and ideas.

In the mean time, I’d like to feature a few of my favorite photos from 2015. I traveled to Ontario from Nova Scotia for some of these photos, and the rest are taken locally in the Annapolis Valley. The valley has such beautiful country side and watching the colours change from summer into fall is quite spectacular although I’m not sure how well I captured that magnificent colour. My favorite places to frequent and photograph are Blomidon Beach & The Look-Off. During low tide the beach goes out for ever. The sand is fairly hard and red. The cliffs are also made with red sandy clay and the combination of the red clay, deep green plants and rich blue sky make for a most stunning aray of colours.

I hope you enjoy these few memories of 2015.