Yesssss!!!!

Steve

One week on, still no broadband or phone and still having to piggy-back on the neighbour's wifi. Apparently the hole diggers cut through a cable that was connected to half the street, did a botched repair (which they should not have attempted), filled in the hole, didn't tell anyone and left lots of houses with problems. An engineer came a few days later, the hole was re-dug, he tinkered with the cables, the hole was re-filled - and some of us are still waiting. The hole-diggers' help line didn't know there had been a problem, so I've written (yes, a real letter ) to their Chief Exec.

Anyone remember the immortal line 'Oh it all makes work for the working man to do' from the song 'The Gas Man Cometh' by Flanders & Swann?

Steve

Oh how very English! And how very good .

The only one that doesn't make me think 'wow' is actually the first, the 'very English street'. And that isn't a comment on the photography but rather the street itself seems just seems 'Olde Englishe generic', much the same as many others. It isn't only modern high streets that look much the same!

Steve

Those pre- and post-storm pictures - wow, wow, WOW!!!! And you did manage to get a storm picture even if that great red spot on Jupiter is only a fraction of a pixel in the last picture .

And please send some lashing rain down south. Water butts are only useful if there's occasional rain to top them up... .

Steve

Totally agree. I've always found that the best photo opportunities in such places are in the detail - as you have done, and done so well . Interesting that you used 300mm for all. Pre-planned or opportunistic?

So a bit like my garden then...

Steve

You mean to say that some enterprising Chinese company hasn't produced a fishing rod with hot-shoe attachment???

Steve

Grrrrrrrr!!! Fibre cable is being laid in local roads, just started on mine. Lots of noise, dust and disruption. But fair enough, infrastructure is being upgraded so some inconvenience isn't unreasonable. What is unreasonable is that both my landline and broadband died on Saturday and also next door's landline, and rather suspiciously holes were being dug for cable when they died. Thankfully next door's broadband is still working so I can piggyback on their wifi (with their permision of course). So I tried to report a broadband fault via my ISP's website. Just one problem - it said it couldn't check the connection because I needed to be connected via my own broadband, which of course I wasn't. So how do they expect you to use their fault reporting webpage to report that their broadband connection has died??? As I said at the beginning ... Grrrrrrrr!!

Steve

Interesting how a few words in a title or description of a picture can affect how you see it. My first thoughts when seeing the pictures were 'Yes, the bluebells are definitely past their best, what a shame '. It's taken a while for me to be able to see the pictures as 'A lovely woodland walk, those bluebells complement the greenery nicely '. What a difference a few words can make!

Steve

Thanks
Nope. First at f4, second at f5.6. The way each image changes as the f-stop changes is subtle but noticeable. Smaller aperture puts more of the bud in focus but also makes the background less blurred. I went for the one I preferred in each case. Other eyes/brains may have made a different choice.

Steve

Contrasting photos of two poppy buds that had just started opening yesterday evening. Memories of a brief moment when red competes with green. By this morning the flowers were fully open and by midday the petals were on the ground.

K3 + Irix 150mm macro, tripod mounted, 2 sec delay and hope that the air remains still. First at f4, second at f5.6. To my eye, these are the best from series of shots of each bud from f2.8 to f11.

Thoughts, comments etc. welcome as usual.

1. Bright and cheerful



2. Dark and mysterious



Steve